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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27153655">Spiritual Weapon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Botos/pseuds/Goose'>Goose (Botos)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action &amp; Romance, Assassination Attempt(s), Blackwall's Real Name Used, Dubious Ethics, Elf Culture &amp; Customs, Established Relationship, F/M, Genderfluid Character, Knight-Enchanters (Dragon Age), Near Death Experiences, Political Alliances, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Trans Female Character, Trans Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Wycome (Dragon Age)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:00:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>25,947</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27153655</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Botos/pseuds/Goose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>2nd level evocation</i><br/><b>Casting Time:</b> A several week ride from Hercinia<br/><b>Range:</b> Aprox. 1.4 square miles, plus the surrounding farmland<br/><b>Duration:</b> As long as it takes<br/>When you cast this spell, you and your husband leave the relative comfort of your routine and travel to Wycome, unaware what troubles have bloomed in the city-state since last you heard from your clan. On arrival, you take psychic damage equal to 1d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Blackwall | Thom Rainier/Female Lavellan, Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan &amp; Female Lavellan, Female Hawke/Isabela, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. the town of the queen of angels</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Updates Thursdays</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">And thus, the Minanter reached its terminus, spilling into a flourishing delta that glints orange under the setting sun. Wycome crouched among the oblate marshland, the streams delicate by comparison, veins on a butterfly’s wing while a black spot of the city thrummed in its center like disease growing larger.</p><p class="p1">You’d always hated getting to close to the human cities. The farmland you didn’t mind: they were unobtrusive, peaceful even, they made you understand why someone might choose a life in one place and cultivate around them. But the cities, those were unforgivable. They changed far too much, and loomed far too large.</p><p class="p1">That’s what your younger self thought anyway. Now, after fortresses and spires and all the other ways you’d seen mortal misery, a single city on the sea had sunk low to the bottom of the list.</p><p class="p1">“So there she is,” Thom said, his horse climbing the last steps of the ridge. “It certainly is lovely.”</p><p class="p1">“Maybe on the outside,” you disagreed, a bitter taste of infection on your lips. “But I fear what lies waiting for us within. It has been a long time since it’s felt the Inquisition’s touch.”</p><p class="p1">“What has you so dour?” he asked, pulling his Courser to a stop. “Yesterday you’d been jittery to see your clan.”</p><p class="p1">“It has been…a long time.” You thumbed your reigns. “I was…different when I left than I am now.”</p><p class="p1">You didn’t know why you were being so coy in your wording: if anyone would understand, it was him. He’d proven that at thousand times over.</p><p class="p1">His eyes crinkled soft, and he reached out to place a hand over yours. “It’ll be alright, Miel. They’re your family, and they’ve been missing you as much as you’ve been missing them.”</p><p class="p1">“…You are right I’m sure. I am just being fretful.”</p><p class="p1">Despite the ache in your chest, you had delayed, delayed again, then delayed some more. In truth that was not the only thing that has changed about you since you’d left—you oft worried you had become an entirely different elf, one too comfortable in fancy chairs and among human machinations to ever fully come home. The was the possibility that your longing to see vallaslin’d faces and hear halla whicker was just a sheen of nostalgia, and once you returned you’d realize that you were too far gone to truly be one of the People.</p><p class="p1">“Thank you for coming with,” you said to him instead of all this. “I do not think I could do this without you.”</p><p class="p1">“After we’ve been traipsing about the continent for three years sorting out my mistakes?” he laughed. “You need to learn to ask more things for yourself, my lady. You don’t get nearly enough in return for what you do.”</p><p class="p1">You grinned. It had become so normal for you, hunting down every last one of Rainier’s men and making amends, wandering over every lead until, at last, he had done all he could. Ironic, that returning to the Dalish was leaving nomadism to “settle down”.</p><p class="p1">“We’ll retire after this, I promise,” you said as you gave your hart a nudge down to the flatlands. “We’ll get a nice cabin near Markham: you can sit around all day and chop wood. I can also sit around and chop wood, but <em>my</em> axe will be made of magic.”</p><p class="p1">“Sounds divine,” he said. “Can you truly do that? Make your blade any shape you like?”</p><p class="p1">“Any that I can imagine,” you confirmed. “The shape doesn’t change the weight, it’s always the same, but the…it is more difficult to move through the air the larger it is. Like a sail full instead of close hauled.”</p><p class="p1">You felt an empty hilt, tucked snugly into the sash of your travel robe, beyond your reach as your hand was occupied with the reins. You had been meaning to practice with it again, always thinking there would be time to train when were in-between buissness, but you hadn’t touched it since…well. Of the times you had needed to defend yourselves, (a lone knight and his unassuming elf companion), other magics had worked just fine.</p><p class="p1">There would be time later. Now, you had a clan to schmooze.</p><p class="p1">Clan Lavellan had now lived in the Adelbright forest for over half a decade, and incredibly long for any clan that had a choice in the matter. Children had been born in the shadow of the city across the delta that were now old enough for their first practice swords, who had never known anything but bountiful hunts and peace with humans.</p><p class="p1">“It’s a good thing we sent word ahead,” you noted to Thom as you passed the threshold of the forest, grass giving way to the crush of wet leaves. “We wouldn’t have gotten this far otherwise.”</p><p class="p1">“They stop anyone who enters the forest?” he asked, looking around at the lightly playful trees.</p><p class="p1">“If they’ve kept to custom. There are probably eyes on us even now, but the proper thing to do is wait for the Keeper to greet us.”</p><p class="p1">As you entered Adelbright—your journey from the south chosen so that it could be your first stop before having to approach Wycome—you could see the signs of prolonged habitation. There were still tents, yes, but every fifth one was replaced with a house of wood, built flimsily as though the constructor still expected to flee at any moment. There were even platforms knitted into the branches of trees, gatherings of supplies to keep them out of the claws of wolves and scavengers. Permanence had settled into the Dalish, tolerated if uneasy.</p><p class="p1">The first boundary of the camps scraped under foot, and the Keeper appeared before you, beaming as you slung off your hart.</p><p class="p1">“Mi’Elgar!” she beamed, squeezing the everything out of you in one surprise hug.</p><p class="p1">“Keeper,” you greeted—to your own surprise—a little breathlessly. You had thought letters had been enough to keep the onslaught of homesickness at bay, that you were above snuggling into your mentor’s arms like a child, but it had been so long since you had seen her in the flesh could you really blame yourself?</p><p class="p1">She drew you back to arm’s length and ran a finger along your braid. “Your hair has gotten so <em>long</em>, da’len. You’ll have to let me re-do this for you.”</p><p class="p1">“As her barber, I take offense to that.” Thom landed from his dismount, appearing behind you with a humble smile.</p><p class="p1">“Keeper,” you said, a grin spreading over your cheeks, “I am delighted to introduce my bondmate, Thomas Rainier. Thom, this is Deshanna Istimaethoriel, Keeper of clan Lavellan.”</p><p class="p1">Others had come to gather at the edge of camp, hunters who knew how to feign disinterest and apprentices who did not, a whole sea of familiar faces that had faded at the edges.</p><p class="p1">“Andaran atish’an,” Deshanna greeted pleasantly. “It is good to finally meet you, Rainier.”</p><p class="p1">“Likewise,” Thom nodded. Hands clasped in front, eyes down when deferring to a Keeper, just like you’d taught him. “Any clan that can spit out such a good woman is definitely one I wanted to get to know.”</p><p class="p1">You looked away quickly, hiding an embarrassed smile behind your hand. He was only supposed to talk you up like that when you were front of pompous nobles, not get all buttery in front of your <em>family</em>.</p><p class="p1">As Thom and the Keeper completed their introductions over your growing mortification, you spied movement among the growing crowd.</p><p class="p1">“Aneth ara! Aneth ara da’len!” Lulen pushed her way to the front. “Welcome, home my friend.”</p><p class="p1">“Lulen!” You almost wanted to hug her too, but the years felt too many. “You look well. How are the halla?”</p><p class="p1">She smiled, her gap-tooth still childlike even as the last years of her adolescence had faded away. “Their coats are growing thick for the winter, though we’ve never had a sour one for as long we’ve been here. Elgar’nan’s blessing for that.”</p><p class="p1">“Elgar’nan’s blessings are always curses in disguise,” a voice near the fire said bitterly. You turn to see Banalian fletching his arrows with cardinal’s feathers, his eyes narrowed firmly on his work. “Elvhenan may praise when the sun grows hot, right up it shrivels every berry and root under its gaze.” On the last part, he looked directly up at you.</p><p class="p1">“Fenedhis, don’t listen to him,” Lulen swatted. “He’s just mad because he missed an easy deer yesterday.”</p><p class="p1">“Shut it Lulen!” Banalian snapped. “At least <em>I</em> hunt. This one’s been away so long she doesn’t even look elvhenan. She’s wearing a human’s boots for Andruil’s sake!”</p><p class="p1">“They’re my boots,” you replied. “And my feet feel just fine.”</p><p class="p1">“Surrounded by stone at all times. You have must have forgotten how to feel the breeze.”</p><p class="p1">“You know the dwarves have similar superstitions,” you said, crossing your arms. “They say that once you see the sky, you lose your stone sense.”</p><p class="p1">Banalian scoffed. “And what would <em>you</em> know about what Durgen’len believe?”</p><p class="p1">“I’ve met a few.”</p><p class="p1">“Enough of this!” Lulen huffed. “Brother, go bother someone else. We’re going to go talk with less surly people.”</p><p class="p1">With that, Lulen tucked her arm into yours and pulled you into the fire. There were introductions. <em>Re</em>introductions, but so much had changed with the seasons. Your friends had given birth, or fallen in love, or left all together. Yet, even still you fell back into old conversations, talking about the weather, the animals, how hunt had gone, the same words you had spilled from child to adolescence. As though, despite the signs of change splattering the camp, things had not altered for a hundred years and wouldn’t for a hundred more.</p><p class="p1">Still, as you watched these smiling faces, you still didn’t feel home. Yes the home<em>sickness </em>had gone, but what was left was tar in your belly, the shape of something that should have been. Knowing what you knew now, how could you look at your culture untainted? Still call Mythal’s name with no poison at the back of your mind?</p><p class="p1">That night, you lay your bedroll in a provided tent and tried to remember who you were when you last walked these woods.</p><p class="p1">“How did things go?” Thom asked, his hand finding yours to brush over your knuckles.</p><p class="p1">He was asking because of what you’d said on the road to camp. You stared up at the hide roof. “Well enough. Not perfect, but no one has something to say to me directly. It’s always been like that, though; being First can be isolating.”</p><p class="p1">It was true. Even Banalian had other things on his mind.</p><p class="p1">“Yet you think some aren’t happy you’re back,” he mused.</p><p class="p1">You sighed. A perceptive man when it came to your moods. “Perhaps. When you live in close proximity, a clan, a community, the same people for a long time, it isn’t so much the direct accusation. But I think it is not that I’m back or that they’re mad I left, more so the decisions I’ve made.” You rolled onto your side to get a better look at your husband. “Namely, you.”</p><p class="p1">“Because I’m human?” He raised a brow.</p><p class="p1">“Not only that.” The ground felt too hard for the conversation that should be soft, and you rose to a sitting position. “There’s a lot of…shall we say, pressure for children among the elvhenan, especially if you have magic. It’s no dwarven crisis, but when you spend your whole life preserving the last knowledge of the People, the greatest foe against you is time. The end of bloodlines as we know them. So when I came back with a human <em>and</em> a man, some see that as doubly selfish.”</p><p class="p1">“But children were out of the question long before you’d met me,” Thom pointed out.</p><p class="p1">“True. You’d think a human parent for nonexistent offspring would cancel each other out, but the mind of prejudice is rarely so rational.”</p><p class="p1">He could your tightened shoulders in the dark of the tent, and he pulled you into him. For a moment your pride resisted, but then you allowed yourself to relax into the warmth of his chest.</p><p class="p1">“But that’s all just guessing. If they’re really so irked, the Dread Wolf can have them.” You sat up straighter to look at the shine of his eyes, the only thing you could see with the moonlight peaking through the flaps in the tent. “I’ll have you for how ever long I like.”</p><p class="p1">As your hand tightened into his nightshirt, his chin tucked down and up again, a question written abstractly in the motion. You hadn’t seen him awkward at all today, not even when the children started tugging on his beard and demanding to know why he wore furs up there. “Right now? Won’t your clan…hear?”</p><p class="p1">“Of course they will,” you leered. “Why do you think we keep our ears so big?”</p><p class="p1">That he chuckled at, that warm, throaty sound that always ignited the fire deep in your belly. “You know if <em>I’d</em> said something like that, you’d tell me I was being offensive.”</p><p class="p1">“And I’d be right. I always am. Now,” I said, straddling his lap, “let’s give them something to <em>really</em> gossip about.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So miss I got a great script for ya, it’s real good got intrigue and romance <span class="small">and also it’s written in second person <b>and</b> past tense</span> wait no don’t go! Ma’am, ma’am please! Please come back!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. i want to study local zoning laws all night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">The morning smelled like leaves in your hair and cautious optimism. If anyone thought you look particularly disheveled, they made no mention of it.</p><p class="p1">It had been only a night, but it felt both too short and too long to be leaving again. But Wycome’s Council met at noon today, and as nice as homecoming was, that was truly why you were here. The Keeper’s letters had been scant on details, but you could read between the lines that things were not as steady as you’d left them five years ago.</p><p class="p1">You grabbed the horses from where they’d spent a night of making the halla nervous, though they themselves gave you some slow blinks to indicate they couldn’t have cared less, and met Thom and the Keeper on the north edge of the forest. Deshanna was gone from Keeper robes, replaced with a fine silk double and white trousers, the scantest peek of green stocking peeking out from underneath. It was an unmistakably a human outfit, and also unmistakably a man’s.</p><p class="p1">Thom was obviously taken aback by the dramatic change in wardrobe. Deshanna noticed with a chuckle, and explained, “they don’t care for the opinions of women so much in human castles, but especially an elf woman. Have to work thrice as hard to get a quarter the respect.”</p><p class="p1">“You can say that again,” I snorted.</p><p class="p1">The Keeper winked at Thom. “At the very least, I can remedy one of those things,” he said, and tapped the side of his nose.</p><p class="p1">“You needn’t worry about insolence from me,” Thom said tactfully, his particular brand of humble smeared on like marmalade.</p><p class="p1">Thankfully, the Keeper was oft one for good humor, and laughed, “I hadn’t even worried. Mi’Elgar, you truly found a delight.”</p><p class="p1">“It is quite rare to meet a charming man while wandering the woods,” you agreed.</p><p class="p1">The three of you set off across the Arvale flats, the road winding over bridges as the delta’s fingers bubbled underneath, each reaching the end of their own journey to the Amaranthine Ocean. Thousands of frogs burped their good mornings, and it was almost impossible to think that winter would soon be setting on the Free Marches.</p><p class="p1">Thom slowed his horse to a trot until you were both some ways behind the Keeper. “He do that often?” he asked with a chin tilt toward your third.</p><p class="p1">“Whenever we’ve had to meet with humans, yes,” you said. “I’m actually surprised he chose to meet you as a Dalish instead of an ambassador.” Surprised, but quietly pleased. Small signs of respect could go a long way.</p><p class="p1">“So a long time then,” Thom confirmed. “But you were still worried your clan wouldn’t accept <em>you</em>?”</p><p class="p1">“I know I know,” you waved off. “I was just…worried. That was all.” Some thoughts couldn’t be chased away entirely: you could set enough traps to catch most of the rats, but there’d always be scurrying in the walls at night.</p><p class="p1">Thom clasped your shoulder, warm and firm, and you leaned to tuck your ear over it in lieu of a spare hand. It was a ritual you’d developed over the years whenever he had to approach you from your bad side.</p><p class="p1">But he was right, your worries had been ill-founded. There were some among your clan who disapproved, but as long as they were quiet, they would not bother you.</p><p class="p1">Wycome came to blot out the sun in front of you. It was a surprisingly vertical city, each layer of history built atop the other on the sole section of the delta that wasn’t marshland. Spreading outward wasn’t an option, as anything heavier than a farmhouse sunk into a land in less than a decade. Not that it had stopped the humans from trying: two different alienages and one poor human distract had been subsumed over the nine hundred years since Wycome’s founding, and the bones of the ill-advised expansions could still be seen from the coast.</p><p class="p1">Dominating even over the city itself was Fort Gifre, named after the first Champion of Wycome, a hulking tower of opulence. Despite its denotation, Gifre inclined more to beauty than defense, with its high reaching spires no one could reasonably shoot an arrow from, and gates flung wide for traders and merchants as they spilled in on the morning’s call.</p><p class="p1">At these gates, the captain of the guard welcomed you.</p><p class="p1">“Greetings Councilor Lavellan,” the human said, her face tight from a wicked burn scar along right cheek, one that scraped from the corner of her mouth into an exaggerated frown. “These are the guests you had been expecting?”</p><p class="p1">There was…and odor in the air. Despite the throngs of animals and people entering the gates, you could still smell it underneath—not that it was strong, but it touched something so hypersensitive in you that your veins jerked wildly underneath your skin as it tried to place it. You body twanged in danger, but you didn’t know <em>why</em>.</p><p class="p1">The Keeper had no such reaction. “Captain Mallorick, I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”</p><p class="p1">“I am to take your guests to their new quarters, Councilor,” Mallorick replied. “As they will not be allowed in the Council chambers.”</p><p class="p1">“Mi’Elgar is my First,” Deshanna said as he indicated you. “As my heir she has the right to sit in upon gatherings as an observer.”</p><p class="p1">The guard captain fixed you with most intense expressions an un-feeling face had ever thrown your way, boring into you with blue eyes. There was no doubt she recognized you as the Inquisitor, maybe had the moment you had stepped into her line of sight, and now was only the question of if she would acknowledge it.</p><p class="p1">After what felt like the eternities stretched out before you but in actuality was less than a second, Mallorick looked back to the Keeper and said, “that is a matter you will have to discuss with Councilor Orrick.”</p><p class="p1">“I’ll get on that right away,” Deshanna said cheerfully. “Let us head inside then?”</p><p class="p1">With that, some cold spell finally broke, and your party headed into the Keep, you still churning over what could possibly have unsettled you so.</p><hr/><p class="p1">The Council chambers were large, beautiful, and hilariously assailable. From here you could already see six weak points in the defenses—the massive windows could fit multiple assassin’s at once, the grand doors swung in instead of out—to name a few. And you wouldn’t even get started on the private security; these men looked half asleep, especially when compared to the more refined and professional city guard that patrolled the market square.</p><p class="p1">But protection of the Council was left in Rudolf Orrick’s hands, whose woman was now blocking your entry.</p><p class="p1">“No weapons inside the chambers,” she said stiffly.</p><p class="p1">You looked sideways at your staff. “Ah, this isn’t a weapon actually. It’s a cane.”</p><p class="p1">“…A cane.”</p><p class="p1">“Yes,” you said. “I’m crippled you see. I need it to walk.”</p><p class="p1">She eyed your missing arm. “To walk.”</p><p class="p1">Betraying nothing, you deadpanned, “it’s for balance.”</p><p class="p1">She sighed, obviously debating if it was worth her time. “Fine, you can hold on to the staff. But I am going to need you dagger.”</p><p class="p1">“My dagger?”</p><p class="p1">“Yes,” she huffed. “Your dagger.”</p><p class="p1">You reached behind and withdrew the empty hilt from your sash, which was merely a piece of wood wrapped in tactile fabric. “<em>This</em> dagger?”</p><p class="p1">She shifted uncomfortably. “Yes. That dagger.”</p><p class="p1">“We get these back at the end of the session, yes?” you mused. “So, when you give back Orrick his blade and Salm her double-bearded great axe, you will, in front of the others, also take the time to hand back to me…this dagger.”</p><p class="p1">“Maker’s breath <em>fine</em>,” she groaned. “Keep your bloody sticks. But I want them under the table at all times.”</p><p class="p1">“Of course,” you said genially, “wouldn’t want anyone to use them for kindling.”</p><p class="p1">Perhaps you shouldn’t have antagonized one of the people responsible for your protection, but it was worth it to keep your components on you. You didn’t trust these merchants as far as you could psychically pick them up and fling them.</p><p class="p1">Speaking of, Orrick nodded politely as you took your seat and returned to his abacus, no doubt trying to squeeze some last minute skimming in before the gathering. Although you’d called in a few favors from Charter to learn about your potential oppugnants in this city of vipers, you believed in doing your own research. Orrick was generally the most reliable ally to the two elvhenan members of the Council, though mostly because the free trade in the alienage had opened up quite a few markets for his constitutes’ general goods. (Multitudinous, if not with deep pockets.)</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Each of the three humans in the counsel represented a general section of Wycome’s economy, and minor merchant houses rallied their chosen representative, consolidating over the years into nouveau-nobility. This pseudo aristocracy was certainly a shadow on the horizon, though how detrimentally it would affect the wellbeing of the Wycome’s citizens, you had yet to ascertain.</p><p class="p1">The second Counselor to enter was the hahren.</p><p class="p1">Immediately, you were struck by how young he was. West Cobbler was a level of scruffy and wide-eyed that did not fit his title of <em>revered elder</em>. Nevertheless, as soon as he caught sight of you he walked over and ensnared you in a handshake. “The blessed Herald of Andraste! Glorious to meet you my friend, an absolute delight. I was starting to think Lavellan had made up the whole connection to you for cachet.”</p><p class="p1">“Not that it would bring him much.” Another voice had followed West in. You both look up at Loretta Glinskaya, her outer cloak still shrouded around her shoulders, fastened with a jeweled broach worth more than the city’s security budget. “The Inquisition is hardly am authority to flaunt anymore, already it is dead a year longer than it lived.”</p><p class="p1">If Orrick were a possible ally here, Glinskaya was the hand in the dark would need to watch out for. Not that you ever had an untrustworthy advisor before, but in the early days Leliana made you wary with the things she seemed to know that she really shouldn’t. You were mistrustful of the silver with which she silenced potential threats and the sharpened tongue with which justified it later. The two of you had resolved your issues eventually, but most of what you know of human interplay was learned at Josephine’s skirts.</p><p class="p1">For instance, never show your distaste when you can avoid it. “Serah Glinskaya,” you smiled. “Pleased to meet your acquaintance: we never did correspond when the Inquisition was still assisting in the affairs of the city.”</p><p class="p1">Glinskaya sniffed. She was the only non-original member of the Council—her family alone controlled nearly a quarter of Wycome’s ships, and many with foreign investments had thrown their support behind Atticus Glinskaya when Duke Antoine had been dethroned. Since then, Atticus had retired quietly, not a year after becoming one of the most powerful men in the city. (Though considering his daughter already had grey in her hair, maybe that wasn’t surprising.)</p><p class="p1">You had been betting that this was a sore spot for Loretta, and it appeared you were right: her eye twitched. But then she composed herself, reassessing how she would levy this conversation. “If you had, that was nearly five years ago; I doubt you would remember. Wycome has been pushing forward on our own quite well without your assistance.”</p><p class="p1">“Ah, nugwash Lori,” West said cheerfully. “The Inquisition did more for us in five months than we’ve done for ourselves in five years. If not for Lavellan Two here,” he clapped a firm arm around your shoulders, “you all would still probably be blaming the elves for the water, and suckin’ on a Tevinter teat while you do!”</p><p class="p1">The look Glinskaya gave West was chilling, the words <em>how dare you speak to me you knife-eared little shit</em> fluttering clearly over her mind if not her lips. She had never openly declared anti-elf sentiment, not when it would mean losing her seat on the Council and possibly expulsion from Wycome, but she didn’t need to for those who shared her like mind to quietly let her represent them.</p><p class="p1">“I meant no ungratefulness to what the Inquisition has previously done for us,” she said stiffly. “I am more concerned about the present, and our willingness to let outside influences sit in on the most private meeting in the state. Should we truly allow Lavellan to select his heir from among the Comtesses of a foreign city?”</p><p class="p1">Now <em>there’s</em> an angle. Dependant on technicalities and a whole mabari-course of loops to jump through, but an angle nonetheless. It reminded you of something Josie would come up with.</p><p class="p1">This could be a real issue she took in front of the Council, and although that might have given you more time, if you could nip this in the bud right now…</p><p class="p1">You smiled. “I understand your concerns, Councilor, but you should know my husband was born in Markham—so <em>my</em> heirs will of course have no preference either way, and no allegiance but to their home in Wycome.”</p><p class="p1">There, something as equally stupid to shore things up.</p><p class="p1">There were rules of thumb for engaging in civic barbs: she couldn’t point out that there would <em>be</em> no heirs, as commenting on a lady’s situation is embarrassingly Southern. However, should she point out that your children would be a collection of filthy half-breeds (which ironically <em>would</em> be acceptable), she’d be conceding to not knowing the first point, which would make her look quite the fool.</p><p class="p1">So all she could do was gnash her teeth and say, “…what a comforting thought, Herald.”</p><p class="p1">You waited to see if she’d say more, but she merely offered you and West the barest acceptable bow and went to claim her seat. West turned to you and said, “lovely woman, isn’t she?”</p><p class="p1">All this talk of being the Keeper’s heir was only theory, of course. You’d made no promises to stay, only to join him and shore up his support; remind this city that the Inquisition may be gone, but it wasn’t the only organization that the people owed their freedom to.</p><p class="p1">Besides, you’d just got here. Neither you nor Thom yet knew if you wanted to be back inside castle walls. </p><p class="p1">West was just about to ask you something more when the chamber doors opened for the final time, admitting the last two members wrapped in conversation. One was Deshanna, face pinched and staff missing as he talked to the de facto leader of the Council. Ser Gloria Salm was probably the only person (save for West Cobbler, who was still a mystery to solve at a later date) who was here on charisma alone.</p><p class="p1">Free Marcher politics had an entirely different flavor to Orlesian: while the Grand Game was considered a sport to Orlesian lords and ladies—a delight, and for many a draw to seats of power—most northern upperclassmen had no taste for it. The majority Marchers simply wanted things stable, unchanging, so that they might continue to live undisturbed in their fancy houses above their respective cities. This explained Salm’s popularity; she showed no outwardly strong affiliations, and therefore was far less trouble than some upstart elves or opinionated fellow merchants, no matter how more powerful they theoretically were. An utter pragmatist, someone one could trust not to back the losing horse, even if that meant no horse at all.</p><p class="p1">That, and she was just a familiar road, worn as the lines in her face. She had won several grand tourneys in her time, and had earned fame in the (ultimately minor) skirmishes between Wycome and Bastion some ten years past. With nearly every noble in the city expelled, there was still some market for a chivalrous former war hero that seemed comparatively levelheaded.</p><p class="p1">A “reflection” of the silent majority. So, say, if acceptance of the city’s elves became popular opinion, Salm’s support could be a powerful thing gained. (Though a clever woman knew it didn’t precisely have to be in that order.)</p><p class="p1">Whatever Slam and the Keeper were speaking upon found its conclusion. Deshanna withdrew, greeted you with a smile, and took his seat next to yours.</p><p class="p1">“So,” Salm said, her chair scraping upon the stone tile as she dropped agedly into it, “the Piranha Pricks.”</p><p class="p1">Immediately, Glinskaya groaned. “This again? Are we truly going to rehash this for the eighth month in a row?”</p><p class="p1">“There’s been a development-”</p><p class="p1">“<em>Ahem</em>,” Orrick cleared his throat over both women. “Councilor Salm, while I’m sure whatever you wish to bring as our first order of business is most urgent, I’m sure it can wait until <em>after</em> opening oration.”</p><p class="p1">Salm rested her elbow on the table with a wave and a roll of her droopy eyes. “Fine Rudolf,” she sighed in a manner of a woman who had been told such far too many times. “Go on.”</p><p class="p1">Orrick cleared his throat no less than three more times as he shuffled his papers in front of him. “So begins the third gathering in the month of Umbralis, 9:46 of the Dragon Age. Councilors Orrick, Salm, Glinskaya, Cobbler, and Lavellan present, witnessed by Comtesse Mi’Elgar Rainier Lavellan. Rudolf Orrick presiding.”</p><p class="p1">He pronounced your name thickly, with emphasis on the final syllable and the <em>e</em> held too long on the tongue. The light from the ostentatious windows cast every figure in the room into sharp detail.</p><p class="p1">“Thank you Councilor,” Salm said without a trace of sarcasm. “My first order of business today shall be serving up bandits on their own swords.”</p><p class="p1">“Always with the chest-thumping,” Glinskaya drawled. “We’ve sent three missions into that swamp, and what do we have to show for it beside two dozen dead guards? There’s nothing to be done about the Piranhas, Gloria, let them go.”</p><p class="p1">“It’s an insult,” Salm insisted. “And a menace.”</p><p class="p1">“And pretending they aren’t there will not make it so,” Deshanna added. “They’ve gotten bolder, two of our hunters have gone missing.”</p><p class="p1">“And? You have your bows for a reason, do you not?” Glinskaya said. “It is not Wycome’s concern when you live outside the protection its walls.”</p><p class="p1">“That isn’t the <em>point</em>.” Salm slammed her fist on the table. “Look at a bloody map for once in your life: if they’ve made the move into Adelbright, they’ll have the city surrounded in less than a year. Our <em>walls</em> won’t matter when not a single one of our caravans can’t make it to them. You’ll start caring when it begins to hurt <em>your</em> profits.”</p><p class="p1">You somehow doubted that. The Glinskaya family were primarily sea traders.</p><p class="p1">“I might remind everyone that any large bandit group has a critical mass,” Orrick said calmly, as though discussing whether the wine would be sweet this year or not. “They always fall to infighting before they can accomplish what Councilor Salm is describing.”</p><p class="p1">“Not when Wycome is continually resupplying their numbers,” the Keeper said primly.</p><p class="p1">It was the first part of the conversation that lost you, even with how intent you had been as you tried to unravel what Deshanna was hoping to accomplish with this topic. West must have noticed the look of confusion on your face, for he leaned in and whispered, “Wycome has an…odd manner of justice. It much prefers exile to execution or imprisonment, and every convict winds up in the bog sooner or later.”</p><p class="p1">“Does that work?” you asked quietly as the Council continued their furious debate.</p><p class="p1">He shrugged. “Depends. On one hand, our prisons are cheap and small—they only keep the shems long enough for trial, and elves long enough to be bored of ‘em. On the other,” he indicated the surrounding argument, “we have more bandits than the rest of the Free Marches combined, and everyone hates us because they think we ship them all our criminals.”</p><p class="p1">You leaned back in your seat. It seemed both sides were right: the Piranha Pricks <em>would</em> keep growing, (hah, oh how you wish Thom was here so you could snicker <em>that</em> at him), but fighting them head on—even successfully—wouldn’t do much good either.</p><p class="p1">“Enough!” Glinskaya shouted over the ruckus. “This issue obviously won’t be solved today. Salm, put it on the actual itinerary for next time and perhaps <em>then</em> we’ll find some sort of agreement.”</p><p class="p1">In the spirit of true compromise, no one seemed happy, but the Keeper looked the least surprised. Orrick shuffled his papers in front of him, and brought out one that had been folded and re-folded nearly a dozen times. “So, the plumbing in the Tower district…”</p><p class="p1">You watched the proceedings carefully. There were gaps in your knowledge—requests on current events would have been horribly out of date by the time it reached you, so you made do by skimming the core nuggets of what was important to everyone here. But you also looked for the filling, the tension of strings between each person. Charter had given you biographies, but that did little to show you how they interacted with each other in the wild.</p><p class="p1">“So that brings us to the last item,” Orrick said, and his eyes flicked up to your half of the table. “The issue of the alienage’s exclusive trading rights with the Dalish.”</p><p class="p1">The Keeper’s mouth formed a hard line. “We have traded solely with our cousinsfor centuries. I see no need why it should change now.”</p><p class="p1">“Aye,” West jumped in jovially. “’Cause no one wanted fancy shields but us! Humans didn’t want anything Dalish ‘til Quizzy over here made it in fashion.” He elbowed you in the side, perhaps a bit overzealously.</p><p class="p1">For the first time, the eyes of every Councilor landed on you. You had kept your posture impeccable, but you still had to fight the urge to sit up a little straighter as you acknowledged their interest unflinchingly.</p><p class="p1">Orrick however glanced at you for only a moment before moving on, “so this arrangement has been kept due to a lack of interest, yes? And not of spite? Surely now that that there are buyers, you could expand your wares to the rest of the city?”</p><p class="p1">You wondered what he hoped to gain from this. With two master crafters and three apprentices, whatever goods flowed into the alienage wouldn’t even be a ripple in Wycome’s economy. Could he truly not know?</p><p class="p1">“This discussion is all academic,” Glinskaya scoffed from her seat against the window, the now setting sun turning her into a darkened shadow. “It has been regulation for centuries that any district with exclusive trading rights must declare it and pay a fine. The Dalish are in violation.”</p><p class="p1">Now <em>there</em> at least was a motivation you could guess. There were no bans on weaponry in Wycome’s alienage, but even the most desperate human merchant wouldn’t distribute within. The Dalish were the sole supplier for arming a destitute and still very tumultuous elf population.</p><p class="p1">Well, at least you thought that was a factor. Maybe, like Orrick, she just thought the elves were making bank, and it happened to grind her gizzard.</p><p class="p1">“I would much rather resolve this in a way that benefits everyone involved,” Orrick demurred.</p><p class="p1">“Pah,” Glinskaya spit, “they just admitted they’ve been skirting this for years. We should fine them back pay on top of it.”</p><p class="p1">“A fine?” The Keeper looked unimpressed. “With what coin?’</p><p class="p1">Orrick unhappily looked between him and Glinskaya. “…Mayhap this fine should fall to the offending district?”</p><p class="p1">“Sure,” West said as the humans raised their brows at him. “Do you mind being paid in moonshine?”</p><p class="p1">You watched Salm watch her fellows. It was a careful expression, one not dipping into bored, yet still believable that she had no thoughts on the matter. It rattled something around in your head—something of your first time in Starkhaven, before the Conclave, before the loss of your arm. Still then only a child, pigeon-toed, accompanying Master Awain as he spread his meager goods to a scrawny flat-ear with dirt on her nose. Really, your only experience with trade from the ground floor, but still it made the beginnings of a plot. So that plot became a plan as the humans bickered, and you rolled it around a few more times in your head.</p><p class="p1">It could work, unless you didn’t know the precedents as well as you thought you did. You would need to run it by Deshanna, lest you were interpreting something incorrectly.</p><p class="p1">As you finished your conspiratorial lean into his ear, he drew up with a wicked smile. “Everyone, my First has an idea that may satisfy us. I seek permission from the Council so that she may speak on my behalf.”</p><p class="p1">There was a moment’s pause, surprise evident in the faces around you, before Orrick offered a, “granted.”</p><p class="p1">You felt the need to stand, and so you did, your staff resting comfortably on your toe. It had been a long three hours, and your spine longed to be out of its chair anyways.</p><p class="p1">“Councilors,” you began, eyes meeting each pair directed back at you, even Glinskaya’s equally as long. “Might not this fine be paid in a tax? It may not pay the offenses we have done in the past, but going forward the Dalish would happily share a five percent portion of their profits to continue our long honored tradition.”</p><p class="p1">You could swear Orrick’s eyes were about to pop out of his head. “A sales tax…that is <em>remarkably</em> generous Comtesse.”</p><p class="p1">“Indeed,” Glinskaya said, eyeing you warily. You waited to see if she could find an objection, but she failed, confirming your suspiciousness and your amusement.</p><p class="p1">To a merchant, a sale’s tax was a death sentence—but merchants didn’t know all there was to trade, despite their monikers. Five percent on wine could get you a mansion in Rivain, but five percent on a handful of bartered goods wouldn’t get you a drink at Local Tavern in North Wherever. This was a failure in perspective that every human at the table shared.</p><p class="p1">West barely hid his laughter behind his hand. “Well, I’m all for it.”</p><p class="p1">“If we are in agreement,” Salm said suddenly, the first time she’d spoken in half an hour, “then I say we adjourn.”</p><p class="p1"><em>Her</em> gaze, which was suddenly upon you, felt like tar, holding you in place even as the rest of the Council rose. It appeared you had finally caught her attention. But even that faded, and he shuffled out with the rest, clearly glad the day was over.</p><p class="p1">Then, you and Deshanna were the last ones in the room. He squeezed your shoulder. “Very well done, Mi’Elgar.”</p><p class="p1">You thought you were beyond sunning yourself in your Keeper’s praise. After all, hadn’t people cheered for you as you lifted a sword in the sky? Hadn’t lords and ladies bowed as you’d entered a ballroom? But still, the pride on his face has reminded you that there was still that crooked-walked child deep within you.</p><p class="p1">“They’ll figure it out when their bottom line come in,” you admitted. “But I think they’ll have forgotten the issue by then.”</p><p class="p1">“Usually the case,” he agreed. “Often times, you just need to wave something tasty in front of their nose long enough for them to not recall what they talking about. Now come, it’s time I showed you around the city.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>da fandom: yeah 2 times deshanna is referred to as she and 1 time as he but that’s obv just a typo she’s definitely a woman haha<br/>my trans ass zeroing in on a genderfluid character: <b>it is written and thus it is so.</b></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. the once and future hare</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Keeper returned often to the clan, but you and Thom did not.</p><p>Your room in the Fort was resplendent, soft cushions and golden curtains turning the reflections off the river into an amber wash. The only delight that had been denied to you was a view of the ocean, but you found the sprawl of Minanter as breathtaking as any sea. Besides, looking across open waters always set your stomach to churn. The Councilors all had chambers within the Fort, though you never called on them there, so you did not know how they compared to the guest wing in which you resided. Aside from the Keeper, West was the only one who didn’t use his rooms, preferring his home in the alienage. Although he never said as much, there was the implication that it kept him closer to the people he was meant to speak for. You couldn’t help but notice his decision reflected rather poorly on your own.</p><p>The Councilor’s chambers that your wing was attached to were hardly ever occupied. Sulen’s daughter had just showed her first signs of magic last month, and the Keeper had her hands full of too much petulant (and potentially dangerous) toddler to attend every Council gathering, leaving you as her replacement. You could tell it irritated some: although the Council meet twice weekly, Deshanna only ever made the trip out on Tuesdays, and it seemed they had gotten used to getting things done without her.</p><p>So you sat in your well-furnished room, alone, and considered.</p><p>There was obviously much to be done. Every meeting seemed to be the same endless arguments, the same deliberations about how many pennies they could wring out of the city’s trade routes. It actually worried you how much things had changed in the five years since the Dalish had been hailed as heroes, when they had allied with the laborers of the city to drive out their Duke. How quickly humans forget, turning to their old ways—although you’d enjoyed a short time of fairness and respect as Inquisitor, a few years of semi-anonymous travel had reminded you that an elf was still an elf, no matter what you did for these shemlen.</p><p>So, more substantial changes would have to be put in place. Perhaps the dismantlement of the alienage? If elves were no longer forced into a corner of the city, they might integrate better. Also, a more persistent common enemy. The working humans were happy to support you when faced against Duke Antoine, so perhaps now they should be convinced that the elves were necessary confederates in the fight against the new merchant class.</p><p>Elgar’nan’s fire, so much to bloody do. You balanced your spirit blade hilt on the back of your hand—your years with it settled it perfectly, the warm wind from the open window giving it only a slight wobble. The days here in the north were always balmy, but the feeling of stone around you and pillows under your head counteracted any discomfort. Oddly, it felt like coming home more than seeing your actual family did.</p><p>The hilt bobbled.</p><p>The ancient elvhenan had weapons like this, fought like you. Arcane Warriors, their techniques garbled over thousands of years until it passed into your hands, so much like every other bit of culture you supposedly knew. If you were to activate it, it wouldn’t change its balance: the blade would be pure light. Weightless. Still deadly. That is what you must be in this town of shades.</p><p>You rose, and began to practice with your staff. Not spells, but the swinging motion of it, those little flairs circle mages loved and you’d learned to delight in turn. It was showy, unnecessary, but it felt good to stretch the muscles in your upper arm, to adapt their technique to your own situation.</p><p>One-armed jab at an opponent’s exposed throat, uppercut at the groin. The basics of self-defense were layered upon with unnecessary fillers, which you practiced anyway because by now you’d found a way to swing your staff around your back one handed. You even had a move where your hand was off it completely, relying on perfectly timed momentum to roll the length of wood around your neck and land back on your other side.</p><p>An hour later your chest was heaving and your body singed with a pleasant burn. It was good to have chased the doubts away with something familiar. You steadied your breath, and went to see Thom before the gathering.</p><p>He was out in the training yard, as you had found him most mornings. “No sparring partner today?” you asked as you approached.</p><p>“The guard’s all out running security,” he said with a smile to you in warm greeting. “So, slim pickings unless I wanted to try roping the stable boys into a match.”</p><p>“Ah, right. The College is officially being opened today, isn’t it?” You leaned against a nearby column, watching as he flicked a dagger at his target, landing neatly near its center. “The mages will need it. I assume the people still aren’t too happy with them.”</p><p>“Everyone will get used to it,” he shrugged. “They’re even moving back into the same tower. I’m sure after a time, no one will remember it was even empty.”</p><p>You watched again as he held a dagger in his hand, so delicate in the hardened folds of his gloves, and eyed the painted mat of straw. It landed in blue paint with a satisfying <em>huff</em>.</p><p>He checked over his shoulder to see you slyly watching him. He smirked. “Fancy a try?”</p><p>You didn’t need to be asked twice, and slipped from your spot. This was the only training from him that’d actually appreciated—you just loved the way the knives fit into your hand, the way you’d learned to make them glide magnificently through the air. If only you’d taken up shield training as easily as this. Then, he might have made that squire out of you he seemed to want so dearly.</p><p>“Has anyone in the Fort given you trouble?” you asked as you selected a blade to try. You aimed, your elbow exaggeratedly wide. “Like this?”</p><p>He gave a smile that said he knew exactly what you were doing, and stepped behind you to lower your arm. “Odd that you’re asking me that, instead of the other way around.”</p><p>“I just want to make sure no one is bullying you.” Every time he pushed your wrist into the right place, it mysteriously popped back up, forcing him to run warm fingers against your arm again. “That’s my job.”</p><p>You could feel the amused chuckle against the back of your neck. “No, no one’s given me trouble. Some people have heard, but Orlais is a long ways away. I’ve earned their friendships with a few beaten asses and more than a few drinks.”</p><p>You reached back, his arm parallel against yours, and let the dagger fly with a flick. It landed directly in the target’s center.</p><p>“Perfect,” he muttered, so close to your ear.</p><p>“You too.” You turned to press your forehead to his.</p><p>“I thought I might find you two here.”</p><p>You looked up sharply to hear you weren’t alone. “Keeper?” you said as he wandered through the training yard’s south entrance. “What are you doing here? It’s only Friday.”</p><p>“It is Da’len, but I have an announcement I wish to make to the Council. Come,” he motioned. “The noon bells are about to ring.”</p><p>You looked up to where the sun hung directly overhead. “So they are.” You pressed your lips together, but didn’t say more. As you departed, you gave Thom a quick kiss on the cheek. “Show those dummies what for.”</p><p>He promised dutifully.</p><p>With that, you and the Keeper went up the winding staircases that seemed almost built to deter petitions. A few times you tried to ask again what he was up to, but you were only hushed in response, circling around and around again. The door guard gave you both a dirty look as you entered the chambers.</p><p>“Lavellan,” Orrick said, looking up from his pre-gathering calculations. “What brings you here today? We’ve haven’t seen you at a Friday meeting since your First arrived.”</p><p>“Indeed,” Glinskaya eyed. “We thought you might disappear all together.”</p><p>Deshanna gave a neutral smile that had the tinge of something more on the canines of her teeth. “And I apologize for my truancy. However, I have an announcement I wish to make that I think will make it up to you. And since we’re all here…”</p><p>West looked up from where he had been whittling a corncob. Salm’s eyes had never left the conversation.</p><p>“As you know, I have been busy training my Second. It has been a great strain to advise both Wycome and my clan, and I feel I have not done my duty to either. So, I wish to announce that I will be stepping down from the Council.” The Keeper placed a hand on your shoulder. “From this day forth, Mi’Elgar shall be filling my position.”</p><p>There was one moment of shocked silence, one that enveloped you most of all, held tight inside its cotton walls, until West began with a round of overzealous clapping. No one else joined, at least none so enthusiastically, though there were some faint muttering of congratulations.</p><p>You found your voice with a, “I of course, humbly accept. Thank you Keeper.”</p><p>You shot him a piercing look. This perhaps was his plan all along, from the moment he’s sent you one of those thinly veiled letters, and it changed everything. This was a far more permanent situation than you had suffered in quite a long time but…it did make a modicum of sense. You did not think you could return to the Dalish, as much as that admission pained you, just as he could not lead them from a Council chair. This might be what was best for both of you: a chance for you to take what you had learned in the realms of men and use it to serve the People.</p><p>There was a brief discussion among the four original Councilors, and the Deshanna bowed out, for what would be the last time.</p><hr/><p>“You made it!” West raised his tankard to you in greeting. “Come, come, I’ve been keeping some seats warm for you.”</p><p>That he had. The ever-climbing slopes of Wycome meant that in the moderately well-to-do districts one could still see the harbor, and the tavern clustered benches at windows like gnats to fruit. The sun had fled the sky, left nothing but a canopy of orange above the still churning bay.</p><p>Thom pulled out a chair for you and draped your cloak across its back.</p><p>“So this is the mysterious husband,” he said as Thom took his own seat, peering with uninhibited curiosity. “No offense meant to you or yours, but I could never go it with a human. I mean, look at the size of your man! It makes me think—there’s a washerwoman down the lane from the alienage, fit as you please, but she’s nearly six foot with arms as big around as hams—I’d be worried as soon as we rolled the hay she’d snap me like a matchstick!”</p><p>Thom shorted, that sharp little guffaw when something has caught him off-guard. “Well then, remind me never to tell you about Qunari women.”</p><p>“Andraste’s bonnet, those things have <em>women</em>?” West rocked back in his chair like he’d been hit by a particularly robust washerwoman, and Thom’s snort turned into a full blown laugh.</p><p>“Well, new Qunari certainly don’t pop out from those frown lines in their foreheads, though I thought as much at first,” you said over your drink. A mug of wine had been set in front of you almost immediately. Not a place one orders, then. “And I’d be careful being so cluelessly endearing, Cobbler. My husband has a known weakness for rapscallious little elves.”</p><p>Thom shook his head, smirking. West laughed, “I wouldn’t call you call you rapscallious by any stretch of the word, Inquisitor.”</p><p>“Oh not to court,” you clarified innocently. “To adopt.”</p><p>West laughed uproariously, banging his tankard on the table, unremarkable in the general din of patrons coming in to sup. He wiped a tear at his eye and joked at Thom, “well by all means then! I ams all but an orphan good Ser: mum three years dead, my da three more to that…if you’ve made any bets that you can train the alienage accent out of me before a specified date, I’m sure I can manage.”</p><p>And like that, you could tell Thom was already partially gone. West had talents subtler than most, a natural charm he had honed to look effortless—no doubt a useful skill, to be dauntlessly cheerful even when every voiced breathed down the back of your neck was a threat against your people. Such a disposition could hide whatever it wanted within, including a keen mind.</p><p>“We’ll consider the offer, hahren,” Thom chuckled.</p><p>You hummed. “Even more an unsuited title than usual,” you added, sensing your chance to ask.</p><p>“Are you referring the fact that I’m barely out of my nappies and got people knocking at my door asking to give away their daughters?” He sighed, propping an elbow on his chair back. “The last hahren was killed in the uprising. Before her, my great aunt was the hahren—jailed and exiled when she raised a fuss about the fish markets falling into the sea. The hahren before her was a complete accident of course. Plenty of break-ins this side of town. The reason the body looked like that was unrelated to how he’d been pushing back against all the human merchants who’d been cutting their wine with salt water.”</p><p>“The Wycomese oh do love their wine,” you muttered darkly.</p><p>“After three hahrens in less than a decade, no one wanted their neck on the chopping block. Anyone who sticks their head outside the gates, who isn’t content to manage family feuds and arrange marriages, winds up dead. People started to think an appeaser is what we really needed.” West was quiet for a moment, uncharacteristically serious. “I was the only one who thought otherwise. This is the time we <em>need</em> to put our foot in the door, not just be happy with a meager victory and go home for the day. This time we can’t just fade quietly into the background.</p><p>“Wycome is in growing pains. For five years the humans have seen the other side of the hill might be like, have tasted something new and maybe never done before, but it is all just long enough that some miss how it used to be. They forget the shite that the Duke brought them, thinking only of how they used to be a bit better than us, that the spoils of the noble houses didn’t seem to find their way into their pockets. The next year will decide if this little experiment will succeed, or fall into the Amaranthine ocean.”</p><p>You all sit in silence at the end of his speech, nursing your dinks and watching lanterns come alight underneath your window.</p><p>“Ah,” West said. “But we can forget that for now. To the new Councilor Lavellan! As opposed to the old Councilor Lavellan. Say, do you mind being called Lavellan Two?”</p><p>“Mi’Elgar is just fine,” you supply, meeting his toast across the table. “Though I find most not of the People find Miel easier to say.”</p><p>“Well then, to Councilor Mi’Elgar,” he said, with a twinkle at his eye. Unlike the rest of his brusque, Free Marcher cadence that spilled over his words like warm gravy, he said your name with perfect pronunciation.</p><p>You watched him and Thom trade toasts and then jibes, closely monitoring his every affectation, every cheerful tilt of his head. He could surprise you, that was certain. A bad trait for an enemy, but not preferable for an ally either.</p><hr/><p>“How long have you been up?” Thom asked as he rose, half clothed in sheet.</p><p>“Is finding your bed empty upon the morn unpleasant, Serah Rainier?” you called without looking over your shoulder.</p><p>“And here I thought you’d stopped holding that grudge,” he chortled. You could hear him cross the flagstones on bare feet to plant a kiss on the top of your head. “What’s this then?”</p><p>“Research.” You flick another ink-stained vellum over. “Did you know when the Arlessa of Amaranthine burned the city during the blight, people thought it was the beginning of an elvhenan conspiracy to overthrow the Chantry?”</p><p>“Can’t say I have an in-depth understanding of Fereldan politics, no.”</p><p>“The whole case is fascinating,” you went on. “There were assassination attempts before the city burned just on principal, a formality even, but <em>after</em> they were en masse. There were three peasant revolts in as many years, nobles that opposed her kept disappearing—which only pissed off the ones remaining. It was a disaster, proof that they Grey Wardens were an arm of Orlais sent to topple Fereldan from within.”</p><p>“Wardens?” Thom blinked wide through still heavy eyes. “Did I miss that part?”</p><p>“Ah, I didn’t mention. The Grey Wardens were gifted the Arling of Amaranthine for their service during the fifth blight.” You turned to raise an eyebrow at him. “You <em>really</em> should know more about the Order you were meant to be of.”</p><p>He chuckled. “It’s a miracle I fooled you for as long I did.”</p><p>“Well, as my mother always said, a girl in love is easy to fool.”</p><p>“Did she now?”</p><p>You shrugged. “In as many words, with more allusions to the Dread Wolf.” You traced your finger over the words again, the propaganda spread about the elvhenan instigator in the very heart of their beloved kingdom. “Do you want to know the best part? About all of this? That this person was everything they hated—an elf, a woman, a foreigner—she was everything they despised and she fought them. And she <em>won</em>. She was able to keep alliances with key nobles in the farmlands, who depended entirely on her and her Wardens for protection. She leveraged trading to make her Keep the new heart of the Arling, and her enemies, short of murder, could do nothing.”</p><p>“Is that where you think you’re headed?” he asked, gazing down at the documents you had assembled, your voyage into elf-held titles throughout history having taken this interesting rabbit hole. “Assassins at your door, enemies at your back?”</p><p>“It may be.” You pulled a board toward you, one of chalk marks and smudges removed with the heel of your hand. Paper wasn’t cheap, after all. “You know what happens to elves who make a fuss, here and anywhere. West is right. This is opportunity to make lasting change, we can’t let it slide by.”</p><p>“Change like your bandit problem?” He had held the subject like a sour beer on lips ever since he’d heard. “This city needs a proper code of justice. You know the penalty for stealing is the same as murder? All out into the swamp.”</p><p>“Better than losing a hand,” you remarked idly, tapping chalk against your notes for the gathering. You’d had the tailwinds of this conversation several times before.</p><p>“Is it?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, that’s a simplification. There doesn’t have to be only two outcomes.”</p><p>You sighed and turned to face him, the edge of your desk coming to support you. “It’s a moot point, Thom. We don’t have finances to build bigger ones, and if we did the guard would just find more ways to fill them. We need to start at the roots, at the disparity, at tearing down the alienage walls and involving everyone in the welfare of the city.”</p><p>“And until then?” Thom didn’t always have convictions, not ones that involved nobles and games and claims at power you pretended at playing. He wanted his Inquisitor bold, above it all, whatever that happened to mean at the time. It was sometimes infuriating.</p><p>You look past him to delta spreading its tendrils beyond the city walls. “<em>Until then</em> has being going on since the fall of the Dales. It can wear its welcome a little longer.” He wasn’t happy. You grabbed your notes. “The gathering is starting soon. I’ll see you this afternoon.”</p><p>Odd to flee your husband’s disapproval to attend the stuffiest meeting this side of the Vimmarks (Varric had told you about the Merchant’s Guild dinners. They weren’t pretty.) Odder still to bubble with anticipation as you did.</p><p>“Honored Councilors,” you said when you found your chance to speak. “I have a proposed solution for the Piranhas.”</p><p>Every head turned. If Glinskaya’s face turned bitter whenever Salm brought it up, from you she looked like she’d downright smelled shit.</p><p>“Acknowledged, Councilor Lavellan,” Orrick said with interest. Perhaps not much hope, but interest.</p><p>“The Dalish will assist with eliminating the bandits. This chaos harms us all, and cooperation is our best solution.” That got several leans inward. A good start. “The Dalish will flush them from Adelbright, into the old alienage. Out of their familiar territory, and into that of the city guard. There, Mallorick will have the advantage, and we can wipe them out there.”</p><p>There were general mummers of approval—or at least, no immediate dissent.</p><p>“It is good of you to offer your people for this,” Salm spoke up. “Certainly your clan is better equipped to handle fighting a hunter’s war than us.”</p><p>“That’s the plan.” And to put to the test the trust Deshanna placed in you. If she wanted you to speak for the clan, for all Dalish, she would need to take your judgment and be willing to act on it. “We only ask that you acknowledge our assistance when the criers come the next morn.”</p><p>“Of course,” Glinskaya said so silkily you’d think she’d never met sarcasm in her life. “We are always willing the people when we are yet again in your debt.”</p><p>You scanned the table. West gave you a, “you have my vote. In favor!” Unsurprising, no one had asked any people of <em>him</em>.</p><p>A round of <em>in favor</em>s careened around the circumference until you had a unanimous vote. Your battle plans were interrogated before your fellow Councilors, and you allowed a swell of cautious satisfaction to well within you. It was certainly not a permanent solution, as the circular arguments had so declared before, but the longer the bandits sat and festered the harder they would be to get rid of. Best to rally now, and claim that common enemy you had so desired.</p><p>Finally, the plans were finalized. Salm locked eyes with you and said, “thank you for this, Lavellan. I know this will benefit us both within and without the walls.” It was…surprisingly sincere.</p><p>You smiled, trying not let the heat in your words flicker out. “Such is my hope, Councilor.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>whenever I get a chance to write what my stupid American brain thinks is a cockney accent I just go wild, totally feral, dogs without horses</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. you will get wet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At night, any forest can turn to death.</p><p>The greatest of Ghilan'nain’s creatures have always preferred to stalk when the sun goes to his rest, and though you see better than humans, a werecat’s eye will catch your movement over the hill long before you know it’s there. Things that looked familiar in daylight will lead you astray, stars that might have guided disappear under clouds: the forest is hungry for those that find themselves alone and away from home.</p><p>But as dangerous as a dark woodland may be, its menace cannot compare to that of a midnight swamp. You and the city guard of Wycome sat in the shadows of the sunken alienage, old buildings with floors tilted sideways as their mortar degraded in the moist air. All eyes were on the sight of the previous massacres—the place where not only beast and winding path were your enemies, but the very ground itself. Even in daylight it was near impossible to tell what was an ordinary patch of mud and what was a sinkhole, or what would take you home and what would break your ankle. The most innocuous trail could you lead you rolling into the river, drowned within moments, unsure how you got there at all.</p><p>The milling soldiers watched the tree line as you and Thom approached Mallorick. Nearly a dozen lyrium potions dangled in a tinkling belt around your hips, generously given by the First Enchanter of the new College of Wycome (though that title was soon to be replaced, if recent votes were any indication. The rebellious mages had gone a bit crazy with the steps they’d taken to distance themselves from the circle, to the point where it had gotten downright pedantic.) The numerous bottles were a tad overkill for just you and the Keeper, but better to prepare for the unexpected where Swamp was concerned.</p><p>“Councilor Salm,” you greeted as arrived at the frontline of the waiting ambush. With a nod to Mallorick, you added, “Captain.”</p><p>With her fisherman’s pet cause, you shouldn’t have been surprised that Salm had come to join the spearhead of the expedition. Still, you questioned the wisdom in it. The Councilor was nearing her sixtieth year, grey thick through her hair and the wear of battles plain on her face. But, if she knew her limits, it was not your place to question.</p><p>Mallorick was less of a surprise, but more of an unknown. In these months in Wycome, you’d only seen her at a distance: passing in the Fort’s halls, or entering the training yard just in time to see her leave. Absently, you tried to see if you could scent the odor you’d detected when you first met, but could smell nothing over the stink of lyrium.</p><p>“Will you be joining us here?” Salm asked of their fortifications in the crumbling tannery. “Or with the Dalish’s strike?”</p><p>“We’ll head to the clan in a moment,” you clarified. “Just wanted to check in before heading out.”</p><p>Mallorick frowned. Apparently that was news to her. “The Dalish have their own mage. Surely it would maximize our effectiveness if you joined the unit here in the ruins?”</p><p>“We want this first strike to shatter them,” you replied, slightly surprised it wasn’t obvious. “By the time they get here, they should be disorganized and scattered. Easy pickings, but only if we put our weight on our front foot.”</p><p>Mallorick considered for a moment, or maybe she was studying you. It was difficult to tell with the way her face warped unnaturally—shaped in a scar no blade could have made. But then she acquiesced. “As you say.”</p><p>“Lavellan,” Salm cut in, “before you go, a word.”</p><p>You followed her out to the edge of the ruins. The night had been chosen for the moons’ newness: thusly, the delta between the city and swamp was a great shadow, no torches allowed as the guard huddled in waiting.</p><p>“Today we make this city safe,” Salm said to the empty void of land, distinguished from the sky only by the stars on the horizon.</p><p>“An awfully noble sentiment for a merchant princess,” you noted.</p><p>Salm blinked. “I never really wanted to take on the family business, I suppose. Always more interested in jousting than the price of a barrel of wine.”</p><p>“You needn’t elaborate,” you chuckled. “My husband would spend every waking moment at the jousts if I let him. I know the sort.”</p><p>She smiled wanly. “Perhaps I should engage him sometime. We’ll obviously have much to talk about.”</p><p>“Don’t do such a thing to me, Councilor. It would be too cruel.”</p><p>When the closest thing to a laugh she’d ever made faded from her face, she turned once again to the darkness. “‘Noble sentiment for a merchant princess.’ It’s odd. I’d brought you out here to say something similar about you.”</p><p>You tilted your head. “How so?”</p><p>“You not much like the rest of your people, the few I have met. They wish to do their business and carry on, to whatever their next destination is beyond our forests. You show more,” she waved her hand, “commitment than Deshanna ever did.”</p><p>You had been preparing to take umbrage with whatever followed ‘not much like the rest of your people’, but had found it to be a rather accurate description of the Dalish. Instead of offense, the mention of doing business and carrying on made you felt a bit abashed.</p><p>“I suppose we can not all be what our forefather’s wish,” you mumbled.</p><p>The two of you stood there for a moment longer before Salm sighed. “I admit that is all I wished to say. I shall no longer keep you. Let us head back inside.”</p><p>With a few last words of stratagem, you collected Thom and headed off, finding him as he usually was: trying to make conversation with a fellow warrior.</p><p>“I noticed you chatting up Mallorick,” you probed cautiously once you were gone from the looming mounds of the camp. “…What do you think of her?”</p><p>“I assume you’re referring to that look I put on her face,” Thom said glumly. “I don’t know. Doubt anyone does, save Salm. The only thing I can guess is something I recognize: someone who doesn’t want to talk about their past.”</p><p>The wetlands were thick and uncertain, too treacherous for horses, and you spent the smallest mana you could to freeze your path to the forest, land solid under your feet and disappearing into crystals as soon as you passed.</p><p>“Thank you for coming, vhenan,” you told him. “It is good to have you by my side when my back needs watching—in the most literal sense.”</p><p>“Not that I haven’t watched it less literally,” he said, kicking apart an overlarge branch. “Remember the Winter Palace? Both times?”</p><p>“Too true. Starting to think you’re looking back there for other reasons,” you grinned as you sauntered ahead.</p><p>You could hear his chuckle behind you. “I will neither confirm nor deny that statement.”</p><p>The elvhenan ambush was even more obscured than the city’s. Everywhere you turned, what you once thought was the gentle curve of shadow would turn into a hunter, decorated with mud and an arrow at the ready. Deshanna met you swiftly, her hair tied back for battle.</p><p>“I hope you are prepared for this, da’len,” she said. Gone was the warm pride when I’d first come to help her, or the sly smile when she’d maneuvered me onto the Council. “We may lose people to this, a fight that could have been avoided.”</p><p>“Nothing holds you here but my word,” you said. “Do you wish to rescind?”</p><p>“We haven’t fought humans in a very long time,” she reiterated. You understood: humans were always more complicated than wolves or wyverns, and victory only brought more humans for vengeance.</p><p>You shook your head. “You’ve fought them for a good cause.” Then, softer. “You could leave. Now. Let the bandits take the place and move the clan to a safer location, as you have always done.”</p><p>“You mean to guilt <em>me</em>, Mi’Elgar? I thought you that trick.”</p><p>“No guilt, an honest offer,” you said. “You put your faith in me. It would be worth less than nothing if you couldn’t take it back.”</p><p>The Keeper studied you a moment, measuring your words. Then, her shoulders sagged. “What we have built here is worth too much to abandon.”</p><p>Sharp and curt, you nodded. “That is all I wanted to hear.”</p><p>Everyone milled around, waiting for the signal, spending a last moment to check their bowstring or tie back their hair. As you passed through familiar faces, each one came into your vision with a solemn frown, a clap on the back, then disappeared again into the rush. You did not know these people anymore. Your people. It felt like a failure of duty: that you had stayed away too long, had not taken enough time to rehearse the Vir Atish’an, irresponsibly let being the last elvhenan fall to second then third then lower priority.</p><p>You realized with a start you were no longer their First. You may have still held the title, but it rang as hollow as Inquisitor—a cause you had also abandoned in inches. It had seemed so clear at the time that the organization needed to end but…some part of you knew you had given up just because the going had gotten tough.</p><p>So now you’d started over, without even realizing it.</p><p>In that moment you promised yourself it would be the last time. You would not be their First, but their Councilor, their defender, their sea wall against the humans. Looking at all these grim faces turning grey under what you asked them to do, you swore to yourself that this time you would not abandon them, even if you could no longer be one of them.</p><p>As you gazed among them, you noticed one approaching you directly. “Lulen?” you blinked. “This is no place for a halla keeper, falon. What are you doing here?”</p><p>“I needed to speak with you. Some news you must know.” Her face was puckered, mournful, but before you could ask, she said, “not here. Gal’ras?”</p><p>An ask for privacy. But though that was the word, it was only ever used in one context: that of shameful or hurtful news to be shared, where one worries the other might cause a scene. You nodded quickly, a kernel of dread rooting in your chest.</p><p>She led you away from where the clan was mulling in its pre-battle miasma, to a thick trunk overhanging the water. It was an odd reflection of when you were children: two little elves who didn’t want to play swords sneaking into the forest, finding trees to climb and ponds to “accidently” fall into. Back then, you just assumed you’d be bonded some day. There was no one else you even liked, let alone who was as curious about the world and its workings as you. To this day she was still so beautiful, and it made you wonder that if you had never left, could you still have wound up happy? Without a forcible fresh start, would you have worked up the courage to live how you’d been meant to?</p><p>“It is about your bondmate,” Lulen said suddenly.</p><p>It sent a jolt though you, as though she’d somehow been reading your thoughts. “Thom? Has he done something?”</p><p>“Yes. No. Not to the clan no, or recently but…some hunters have been to trade in the city. They have heard things, things I think you should know.”</p><p>And so you had to sit there and listen once more in excruciating detail about the things your husband had done in his past life. It wasn’t long, but you couldn’t find it within yourself to interrupt her with how she twisted her hands as she describe the murder of children. Even shemlen children deserved better than that, and she knew it must be hard to hear but you needed to know.</p><p>Your shoulders slouched. “And this has been going around camp?”</p><p>She nodded, but it was suddenly uncertain, as though perturbed by your lack of distress.</p><p>“Thank you for telling me,” you said as carefully as you could. “I know you’re trying to protect me, but Thom has told me all of this. We wouldn’t have been bonded if we couldn’t be open with each other.” Although not necessarily in that order.</p><p>“You…knew?” Her face was a mix of confusion and willful denial. “And you still…”</p><p>The speech came forward easily enough, though never this wearily, caught off guard as you were. You’d had to defend your choices to people who already knew him and people you only superficially cared the opinions of, but never neither. “Thom has spent every day trying to make amends for those murders. He’s a good man. I am best to know it.”</p><p>“Thenrel said he broke from a shem prison, that they were going to execute him.” She wound her hands together.</p><p>“I know, I broke him out.” Before she could recover, you said, “he is not a danger to me or to anyone, least of all the clan. Today he’s going to help us drive these murders from our home: is that not enough to see he’s here to do good?”</p><p>“I…” she set her hands in her lap. You wonder if you’ve disappointed her, or if that will come later. That you would apologize for this man whose crimes could not be greater must say something horrid about you, and that Lulen might agree with that sentiment turned something cold inside you. You’re not the elf she grew up with. Now you play with swords. “I suppose.”</p><p>She was not convinced. “Thank you,” you said anyway. “Now please go back to camp, it is not safe to be unarmed here.”</p><p>As quickly as you could, you found Thom chatting away with a group of hunters. They must have met the first time you were here, such was their familiarity with how they traded a pre-hunt flask. Such thoughts flashed by quickly, but didn’t distract you from lightly touching his arm. “A moment, ma vhenan?”</p><p>He merrily excused himself, but he caught sight of your expression and his face fell. “Something wrong?” he asked as soon as you were out of earshot. No water to dangle your legs over here, just faintly rustling ferns.</p><p>“The clan has learned of Callier,” you said softly.</p><p>His face only fell further, bunched sadness at the corners of his eyes. “Ah. I suppose it would’ve happened sooner or later.”</p><p>“Part of me wonders if we should have said it up front,” you groused.</p><p>“It was a happy reunion. It was good of us not to sour it.” He wrapped an arm around your shoulders. “Let me take this one. I’ll head it off before the story is muddied by more rumors than truth.”</p><p>“You don’t have to do that,” you said immediately. “We can just not come back or…”</p><p>He was already shaking his head. “No. You need this, Miel. You need them. You’ve been brought low enough by my mistakes, you won’t be any more if I can help it.”</p><p>A few dozen arguments sprung to you tongue, but at his look you quashed them. This was something he’d never had a chance to do before: tell people his story before it was told for him. “Alright. Good luck. I love you.”</p><p>He kissed you on the forehead.</p><p>The scant remainder of time you had before battle was spent biting the end of your braid and watching Thom make his way around the clan. Most just seemed startled, probably too nervous about the encroaching assault for it to properly set in. You kept waiting for shouting, for someone to throw a fist, but the altercation never came. By the time it was going to begin, Thom had disappeared to the other side of the crowd.</p><p>The smallest wash of cloud cover rolled over the sky, and the hunters began to move.</p><p>You had never seen it in practice before, the way they sprang like a pack, silently through the brush, encroaching upon where the bandits had made their claim. You trailed, hanging back so the faint clang of Thom’s armor wouldn’t alert your prey, and thought <em>fly straight and do not waver, bend but never break, receive your gifts with mindfulness</em>. The Way of Three Trees had been etched into their minds as commonly, as forcefully as the Way of Peace had been carved into yours, and now they fulfilled what was asked of them.</p><p>There was no cry as the first lookout fell.</p><p>As much as human perception believed you to be terrors of the forest, the truth was that you were no mercenaries, and especially not assassins. Anduril does not impart such wisdom as “remember to hide the bodies.” You made it as far as that first dead lookout when the alarm rose inside the camp.</p><p>“Well,” Thom huffed. “Best get to it then.”</p><p>The Keeper’s staff lit, and she threw forward a pathway of ice through the darkened tunnel of swamp. The wail of someone’s alarm turned into a full on scream as you burst into the camp in a shower of ice, your own threads of elemental energy springing to life around your feet.</p><p>There was a human in front of you. You fried him inside his armor, and for you the battle had begun.</p><p>Thom raced ahead, and you swung around to absorb the full extremity of the camp, your staff spinning. You felt the muscles that you’d honed rejoice with the movement, just like the fire spell that had been building within for however long you’d gone without calling upon it. It unleashed like the cork off a bottle.</p><p>You saw a nearby a hunter nearly cut down by a half-clothed Piranha, obviously roused from sleep and mad as all hell. A barrier sprung to the hunter’s defense, and you don’t wait to see what happened to them before lighting the nearest tent ablaze. The Keeper and you stood back to back, slinging spells into the madness.</p><p>“Herd them to the open lands,” she shouted, and broke from your position, heading to the west. You nodded, and conjured a wall of flame to force them further away from the way the clan had come.</p><p>It was working. Scared faces reflected under the encroach of your wall, wide and pale with terror and you pushed them further in. They were scattering, most toward to the great wetlands and Salm’s waiting men.</p><p>Somewhere in the dark, a hunter let forth a war cry, trying to be intimidating. You thought it sounded almost as scared as the fleeing men.</p><p>There was a sudden <em>clang</em> behind you, so close every hair on the back of your neck stood up. You whirled around to see Thom, his blade meeting that of an entrepreneuring young bandit who’d taken it upon herself to stab the mage while her back was turned. Thom had stopped her sword a mere foot from your spine.</p><p>He shoved, sending the locked blades reeling free, and while she was stunned, he took the opportunity to run her through.</p><p>“Thanks,” you said when you found your voice, shaking slightly with how close that had been. “…Training may keep your limber, but it is so easy to forget how much sense you lose in the battle heat.”</p><p>You cast a reflexive barrier. A useless, uncontrolled, after-the-fact little thing as you stood in a nearly desolate camp. It was almost embarrassing.</p><p>“It never really compares,” he said, looking around as the last of the fighters scattered to winds. You plan had worked: they’d been smashed to smithereens like a ship along a cliff’s rocks. Thom put a hand on the small of your back. “Are you alright, love?”</p><p>“None worse for wear.” You took a moment to check him over. “You’re bleeding! Come here.”</p><p>A dribble of blood was leaking out from under his helm, and you pulled him close to wipe it with your thumb. Within you, the flares of offensive magic fought against you as you called the single healing spell you knew, feeble as it was. You’d never had the temperament for spirit healing: every fiber in your was attuned to lash out, not make whole.</p><p>But it sufficed. The gash along his nose stitched over and turned pink. “There. Handsome as ever.”</p><p>“I’ll take your word for it.”</p><p>“Things go well? Explaining to the clan?”</p><p>He huffed. “As well as they could have.” He gazed to where the retreat had evaporated. “Looks like it’s time to rejoin the bulk.”</p><p>The trail back out of the swamp was littered with the follies of forgotten respect for the bog’s dangers. The Piranhas must have once known every inch of this land when they’d devoured the patrols sent to rout them, but now in their panic they had fallen to mud traps and felandaris, bodies left bleeding where someone had come to cut their throats.</p><p>Eventually you came upon the flank of the nearly finished battle. With luck, it would be done before you reached the ruins, and, from the now-lit torches, that luck seemed to be holding. You were only halfway across the flatlands when Thom stopped you.</p><p>“Over there,” he pointed. There seemed to be a figure against the starry horizon, one alone and vaguely familiar.</p><p>You changed course. As soon you got closer, you realized it was Salm, and she was on one knee breathing heavy. As you readied another meager healing spell, you realized she wasn’t alone in entirety. There was a body on the ground next to her. A body that was not a bandit.</p><p>“Lavellan,” she said, straightening up. She didn’t appear to wounded at all, merely winded. You didn’t fail to notice the blood wet on her great axe.</p><p>“What happened here?” you said in the most neutral of tones. As though asking what a particular bit of mess was in the ballroom.</p><p>“I’ll tell you what,” Salm huffed. “Bastard tried to kill me.”</p><p>She indicated the dead man, a member of the city guard, not hiding at all that she’d taken his life out here with no witnesses. A thousand possibilities clicked through your mind but that Salm was a good liar seemed less probable than other options. You stalked closer to the corpse.</p><p>“We were chasing what we <em>thought</em> was the leader of this little piss party,” she was explaining as you lifted the pocket of the apparent turncoat, “when I heard him draw while my back was turned.”</p><p>Not actually a very good defense, not in a Wycome court at least, but examining the guard’s blade negated that. You sniffed, the acrid scent making your eyes water. “Poison,” you said, lifting it delicately with your gloved hand.</p><p>“You can tell?” Salm blinked.</p><p>“She has a very good nose,” Thom verified.</p><p>Salm looked at the weapon for a moment, then down at the body. “Never had someone try to assassinate me before. Should I be flattered?”</p><p>“It loses its luster after a while,” you replied. Carefully, you wrapped the blade in the man’s cloak.</p><p>Her gaze turned to the battle, now in its last throes, cries of victory echoing across the wetlands. “…Let’s keep this between the three of us for now. I need time to look into this.”</p><p>A reasonable request. You would have asked the same, yet the petition flared warning in the back of your mind. You quietly hid it with a nod. “Of course. Usually assassins don’t give up after the first try. If you ever need help…”</p><p>“Thank you.” She sounded positively relieved, and thoroughly convincing. “It’s good to have people who don’t want you dead.”</p><p>You burned the body quickly. Salm took the evidence still wrapped in its cloak, which wasn’t to your preference but you could see no way to deny her. You couldn’t trace the poison anyway, not with Varric hundreds of miles away and Leliana thousands. There would have to be other ways of getting answers in the city.</p><p>It unsurprisingly plagued your mind as you walked into a throng of victorious guards, drunk on triumph and chest pounding. It all came as a dull roar to you. The clan had not come this far—had held their end of the bargain and returned—and the human features seemed more strangers to you than ever. It suddenly felt very unfair you would not get a chance to say goodbye. You looked for Mallorick as the force slowly ambled back to the city, but caught no sign of her.</p><p>There were so many possibilities. An elaborate stage? Possible but unlikely. Another member of the Council? As always your mind jumped to Glinskaya, but she and Salm argued on so many points it wasn’t clear exactly what this would be about, or why she hadn’t gone for one of her more immediate enemies. Namely, you.</p><p>So filled was your head with questions, you almost didn’t notices the ringing of the chantry bells as you entered Wycome.</p><p>“That’s coming from the alienage,” Thom said. “You don’t think…”</p><p>“Something’s wrong,” you said, and took off at a dead run.</p><p>You had been casting for an hour and marching through muck for more, but still you bolted through sleeping canopies and empty markets like your legs could take you into the Beyond. Thom was right behind you, but you heard no other guards. Maybe alarms from the alienage were so low on their list that they thought they might as well take a nap first.</p><p>Arriving at the alienage was chaos. People were clambering out of their homes, gathering in the streets and shouting—but only elves, not a human in sight to portend a massacre.</p><p>You grabbed a woman by the arm. “What’s going on?”</p><p>“The water’s coming!” she yelped. “Look, look! The pipes are breaking.”</p><p>She pointed, and you did as she commanded, seeing how before your very eyes the cobblestone street began to shake, and a geyser of city water flooded out. People screamed as water pressure that shouldn’t have been possible through stones into houses.</p><p>“Maker’s breath,” Thom swore behind you.</p><p>The woman was nearly hysterical. “They said a flood’s coming! We need to get away from- from- whichever way it’s coming from.”</p><p>You were about to ask how anyone was supposed to run when they didn’t know which direction it was to, when you heard a distant rumble. It was like a wave, like the colossal swells along the storm coast, close enough that you could take a safe guess as to its identity.</p><p>“Balls.” Thom raised his voice above the din and shouted, “everyone out! Now!”</p><p>People had already been scrambling about, but now that they could hear the wash of water in the north they didn’t even need to be told. But the flood was too close to outrun. Within seconds it was so loud you could barely hear the screaming anymore, and you realized suddenly everyone in the district would be dead within the minute.</p><p>“Miel!” Thom called as you ran the wrong way, toward the oncoming water.</p><p>“There’s no time!” And there wasn’t, at least not for evacuation. There might still be time for something more drastic.</p><p>As you ran, you yanked the stopper off three more lyrium potions—far too many for the span of seconds you imbued them—and drained their contents, feeling the nausea as the pure mana quickly took hold. This would kill you if you didn’t burn it off <em>now</em>, if you didn’t bake the biggest ocean-guzzling spell you’d made in your damned life.</p><p>The water bore down. You first glimpsed it as crashed over buildings, coming downward from Wycome’s heights in a rippling sheen of darkness under moonless night, becoming even more invisible as it devoured every street lamp in its path. It had almost reached the alienage, was tall enough to crash right over the walls. Where it had come from you didn’t know and you didn’t care, you simply burrowed inside yourself, summoned every drop of mana you had ever known, and raised your hand to the tsunami.</p><p>Ice blasted from you. It would not be enough to freeze only this wave: you had to also snare the force behind it, reach every drop with this cold snap. Otherwise, the gallons upon gallons would just break through or over the frozen sheets and throw chunks down on buildings. This had to be complete, it had to be total.</p><p>You screamed. You kept screaming. You had never cast something so powerful before and the ice striking out of your fingers had turned your hand numb. The sudden change in cold air whipped up a wind powerful enough to throw your braid behind you, but you leaned in, howling as the spell unraveled from you.</p><p>Three bottles of lyrium and still you were draining. You pressed on. Your ears were open and all you could see was the ice wave above you, frozen and threatening and you <em>pushed</em> further into the water behind it.</p><p>You pushed until the frost would no longer come. You hand was stretched out but nothing flew from it, and so it dropped dead at your side. The ice wall hung over you, blotting out the stars.</p><p>For a second, you stood there. You waited for a sound, for the ice to crack and shift as a new collapse rained down, but the catastrophe never came. People were beginning to poke their heads out, step terrified from their ineffective hiding spots, staring at the thing that almost destroyed them. They stood in awe for minutes. Most were still in shock, but some people began a hysterical cheer, running to hug each other and get slightly closer to you. You could hardly think about them; everything about you was numb, from the lyrium, from the damages thrown back by your own spell. You couldn’t feel anything against your skin anymore accept the cold.</p><p>Thom came rushing forward, but West beat him there.</p><p>“It looks as if our Inquisitor has saved us once again!” He came up to clasp you on the shoulder, face more joyous than you had ever seen it, which was saying something.</p><p>You tried to smile, but it seemed your face wasn’t working right. Instead you bared your teeth over curled lips.</p><p>Thom was beside you now and all you wanted to do was collapse into shoulder and give in to unconsciousness. But he stood a few inches back, theoretically present in that way he went about when he thought you were in some Important Talk. Well, maybe you were, actually. It was hard to tell right now.</p><p>“Three cheers for our lady Lavellan!” The crowd of survivors was only growing, clamoring to see if a mage really had done some good for once. A few of the city guard had show up by now, giving up in a mix of awe and horror at the new sledding hill about the district.</p><p>West went to shake your hand, and made an over exaggerated deal of going for the wrong one only to laugh at his mistake. This seemed to break the tension amongst the elves, and suddenly everyone was laughing with relief as they dolled out their recommended cheers. You were impressed. He could really work them.</p><p>“Thank you hahren,” you said faintly. “But I really must…”</p><p>It was a plead to let you go before you collapsed in front of these people and lost all their respect. Thankfully, West understood, and he patted your arm. “Go, go. I’ll deal with things here.”</p><p>Thom had to help you walk, but was discreet as you exited the alienage walls through the east entrance. You told him, “something is wrong, how could this happen? This was an attack, what if they try again, I need to go see…” That was all you able to say before you departed through the permanently open gates, at which point you—still standing—passed out.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. love must be enough to put my enemies to sleep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Great. Wonderful.” You massaged your scalp so hard it hurt, wrinkling skin that had been stretched into a tight little cap along your skull.</p><p>“So what are we going to do?” The First Enchanter was an old, old human, yet here he was squirming in front of your desk like a nervous schoolboy.</p><p>“Do I look like your Knight-Commander?” you snapped. “This was a massive theft of the college’s lyrium on <em>your</em> watch—it’s not my job to hold your hand through a crisis.”</p><p>“You’re our Inquisitor,” he insisted.</p><p>“I’m your <em>ally</em>,” you pushed right back. “So many years clawing for freedom, and at the first sign of trouble you’re right back to begging for someone to tell you what to do. Deal. With. It.”</p><p>“…Yes Inquisitor.” It was still amazing to see these wrinkled old humans bow to you. Properly abashed, he walked backwards out the door.</p><p>The desk groaned as you jammed your elbows onto it and put your head in your hands. It was outrageously fancy, more so than the practical little thing Josie had gotten for you back in Skyhold, and this one had dozens of drawers and secret compartments. When you’d first been informed of your private office in Fort Gifre, you’d spent hours poking the desk all over, barely containing your enthusiasm for each mystery you uncovered. Now, the once novel office felt like a tomb as you unravel the investigation that got more complicated by the second.</p><p>“You’re usually on much better terms with the First Enchanter,” Thom said from the corner, whittling away on a tiny sculpted bear.</p><p>Ever since you’d nearly killed yourself on lyrium, he’d been loathe to leave your side. By now were up and able to depart your chambers, but despite no longer lingering over your recovery bed he did a poor job of hiding his fussing.</p><p>You stared at your palms for a moment, then growled, “I know. I’ll apologize to him later. I’m just so tired of everyone making everything my problem.”</p><p>“You don’t do much to dissuade them, Miel.”</p><p>He was right again. The thing about choosing to be a ‘Champion of the People’ was that suddenly everyone thought you were involved in <em>their</em> societal woe in particular. Thom wasn’t the only one who thought the slaughter of the Piranhas was a callous display against former citizens, and various College officiates thought you must have <em>some</em> sort of opinion about whatever inane tiff was in fashion with mage bureaucracy at the moment. It was all so exhausting.</p><p>“The First Enchanter said the theft occurred some time within the last week,” you said, pinching the bridge of you nose. “Is it paranoid wonder if that occurred on the day of the flood as well?”</p><p>“Two time’s a coincidence, three time’s a conspiracy,” Thom said gravely. “An assassination attempt, a theft at the Circle Tower, and a near drowning of entire alienage in their sleep: I’d say all those sound like someone with a vendetta against the current Council.”</p><p>“Or it could be the various enemies the city <em>already</em> had. The guard was out of town. If I wanted to commit atrocities, that’s when I’d do it.” You lifted your quill and stroked a finger against the feather, looking at a map of Wycome’s districts. “House Salm has a stranglehold on imported textiles. Or, it could even be within her own family, someone hoping to remove her and gain her position. The lyrium…I suppose there are still apostates out there, those who didn’t want to join the College. Well. At least if they’re using lyrium, it’s not blood magic.”</p><p>“Can still do some pretty powerful things with just lyrium,” Thom said, allowing the smallest hint of levity to the conversation.</p><p>You turned to look at him, smiling softly. “I suppose so.” You rose, your knees popping with the effort. Thom had a nice view by the window as he shaved away chips of wood into a bowl beneath him, and you went to lean against the sill. Below, the waves crashed in time to his gentle scraping. “It’s just…the flood. That’s the only thing I can’t seem to place. This whole revolution began in the fight over water; it’s the lifeblood of the city, control over the Minanter is Wycome’s literal and metaphorical heart. To <em>drown</em> the elvhenan who began this…It’s just too on the nose. <em>That</em> was a message, I have no doubt.”</p><p>Thom knew when you needed your mood lightened, and when you needed time to think. This was the later, and you sat in the calm atmosphere that would last until someone to come knocking at your door again. However, when the peace was finally disturbed, it was not an outsider, but Thom.</p><p>“Miel, I should tell you,” he said, as he set down the finished bear carving. Its flat bottom at perfectly on the windowsill. “I received a letter this morning, from Bisset.”</p><p>It took you a moment to place the name. “From your old company? The one we met in Tantervale?”</p><p>“Aye. He thinks Chevaliers are after him again. He wants my help.”</p><p>After yet another pause, you realized what he was asking. “You want to go to him.”</p><p>Thom looked away. “I know what we’re doing here is important, that you’ve been thinking about…staying. Permanently.”</p><p>You remembered the cabin in the woods you’d promised him, that happy little retirement, and a bit of shame crept into your cheeks.</p><p>“But,” he continued. “If he’s gone so far to write to me, he really must need it. And I can’t ask you to leave, not when all this has been happening.”</p><p>You understood the pleading look in his eye, and you pressed your palm against the side of his face. “Go to him, Thom. I’ll be alright.”</p><p>“There are assassins about…” he reminded you, though you suspected he was arguing with himself.</p><p>“I’m nearly recovered,” you pointed out. “An assassin will have a much harder time with a mage than with a warrior not on her guard.”</p><p>He leaned into your hand. “If you’re sure…?”</p><p>“Were you planning to leave today?”</p><p>“Only if things are settled. Or at least, as calm enough for now. And with your blessing.”</p><p>You chuckled. “You don’t need my permission.”</p><p>“You’re my wife, I always need you permission.”</p><p>Laughing, you kissed him, and pretended the taste of sadness against your meeting tongues didn’t hurt. By that afternoon he was gone, a handkerchief tucked into his armor in an act that made him grin, and you waved long after his horse had disappeared out the Fortress gates.</p><p>It had been years since you were apart for any significant amount of time, and you suddenly felt impossibly vulnerable in this city that seemed ready to snap you apart at any moment. Your allies had finally scattered to the winds: the distant support of a Viscount in Kirkwall, a Marquis in Orlais…but although that would help with invaders, it wouldn’t stop a knife in your back.</p><p>No, you would cease this line of thinking. It was about time you stopped moping in your office, stopped waiting for Salm to find her assassin on her own. If you needed to set out to distract you from your own loneliness, then you would. Your only lead was a trail of still-frozen floodwater, so you followed it.</p><p>People had begun chipping away at the river that turned to stone in the middle of their city. It had claimed over a dozen lives before you had halted it in the alienage, but that didn’t stop opportunistic young merchants from carving out chunks and making a profit in the northern corners of the city. The sudden availability of iceboxes had turned into a craze, and people had been petitioning you to make magically frozen ice into a ‘legitimate business’, to which you were so bloody sick of that you’d almost thrown the last lobbyist out of your office yourself. You hoped that when they dragged the first of the frozen bodies out from underneath the river, they’d learn some damn shame, but somehow you doubted it.</p><p>The trail wound up, higher into the city until one could actually see the rebranded Tower. Here in the middling district was where the trail ended, frozen in peaks of still-sloshing ice. Since the ice wasn’t exactly melting on its own, mages from the College and some members of the dwarven merchant’s guild equipped with fire runes had slowly been uncovering ground zero.</p><p>It would take another week at least. You would circumnavigate in the meantime.</p><p>The sewers beneath the district were only partially flooded. If it was the pipes, like the woman in the alienage had said, this was where you find your answers. You thought back to that day, wondering how likely it was that a saboteur would start at such a high elevation and risk getting humans caught in the crossfire. How does one calculate which direction a flood will head? How much planning went into this attack?</p><p>Your list of suspects was non-exclusive. Any member of the Council, might have reason to, even those ostensibly on your side. Vaguely, you remembered how well West had turned the disaster to his advantage; could he have had some hand in this, counting on the fact that you would stop it? No, that was too paranoid, even for you.</p><p>The veilfire flickered soundlessly in your hand as you illuminated the frozen sewage. No one would be getting their plumbing on this side of the city for a long time, it seemed. Everything you looked at was covered in a layer of frost, bone chilling to your very core as you shivered in robes suited for Wycome’s warming spring. It reminded you of the Old Temple, how you could barely think over how frozen your fingers were, the fear that you would be too late as Harofsen’s echoing chant found its way into every corner of your brain.</p><p>Those rooms hadn’t been touched in a century, but these tunnels held the over complication of modern life in a nutshell. The sewers stretched on for miles; not from distance, but from constantly wrapping around on themselves and sending you checking your map every half-minute. If you could find the area beneath the melting efforts, it would give you a much better picture, or maybe even an answer. The hours in the cold and dark were getting to you.</p><p>But then. Almost by accident, you came upon a series of pipes. The map you’d been carrying had been left over from a public works project months ago, when the Council had elected to re-do the cities infrastructure, starting with the oldest in the city. (Infrastructure was often the only thing you could agree upon, which was a universal fact of politics.) And here, right in front of you, was a section House Orrick had been paid to refurbish, torn to pieces and captured mid-gush where your magic had reached it. As you gazed at the display before you, the intricate metal told an undeniable story: they were smashed from the outside rather than burst from within.</p><p>You swallowed at the revelation. Everyone from the fishing district to Fort Gifre had presumed it was sabotage, but in front of you was actual <em>proof </em>that this had been intentional. You had to be right below the district by now: this was it. This was where it had happened. Even more chilling was that there was a gap behind the plumbing that had, another tunnel that had once been blocked by piping and now by ice. A tunnel that was not marked on the map.</p><p>The dread began to dawn on you. You had vowed to suspect anyone, but realizing that Orrick of all people, or at least someone in his family might be behind this hit you like a stonefist. You supposed you’d never really been convinced of your own skepticism, somewhere in the back of your mind still hoping you could find proof it was Glinskaya’s ilk and give you the chance to strike back at her. But of course things were never that easy. Elgar’nan, hadn’t things been so much simpler when all your woes could be traced back to one singular ancient asshole?</p><p>This was bad. Wherever that tunnel led would irrefutable proof, but you had no way to melt it; a week of recovery and you could conjure a flashfires, but nowhere near enough to melt something <em>you’d</em> made at the height of your power. You’d have to wait.</p><p>No! No, there was no time. You instincts wanted to treat act like you had when fighting the Magister: to see, to observe before making your next move. But now you didn’t have the luxury of certainty. Thom was gone, your friends were tenuous at best, and now you had to present this evidence before someone else got here and had the time to cover things up.</p><p>You made it back to your study in a shaky state. You considered sleeping, but that too seemed like too much of a risk. There would need to be an emergency Council meeting. After all, this couldn’t wait until tomorrow. As you paced about and wrote some notes on your chalkboard, you debated how to handle Orrick. An accusation would only send him bolting to cover any evidence, assuming he was directly involved, and would likely not win you points with the other Councilors. Instead, you would present your evidence, and if Orrick really had no hand in it, he would jump on the opportunity to help you and clear his name. Actually, more than likely he’d do that even if he <em>was</em> involved, but that could be a problem future you could deal with.</p><p>Reaching a decision, you authored a missive that scattered a bunch of couriers around the Fort, delivering your summons, and stalked to top floor to wait.</p><p>The gathering hall felt too bright. No wonder you always finished before evening tea—the evening glare had turned this place positively scorching, dampening the back of your neck before anyone even arrived. They filtered in, one by one, unhappy with you and especially when you wouldn’t tell them why had you called them in on their day off. They all had affairs to attend to after all, taxes to weasel out of and deals to make. The last to make it was West, the only one who didn’t live in the Fort and the hardest to reach. He scented of peach wine.</p><p>“I am very sorry to trouble you all, but I’ve found something that may be of interest to us.” You had never had stage fright before. Even when Cassandra had pulled you in front of a baying crowd and demanded you speak to them, you had merely said what you thought reasonable and hoped for the best. But now, a fear was inside you, the realization that you were alone all over again. There was disaster on the air, the faint smell of fried magic. You swallowed thickly. “It could not wait until tomorrow’s meeting.”</p><p>“Really?” Orrick said, rubbing at his eye. He looked disheveled, like he’d just risen from a nap. That, or he was just mad he wasn’t the one to be the pushy little busybody today. “I’m sure anything that can wait today can wait tomorrow.”</p><p>You turned directly to him, ignoring distractions, tuning out what sounded to be a faint commotion outside the hall. It would be that easy, to say that it concerned him personally, that he really did want to hear this. Right now, you would lay it all out. You opened your mouth.</p><p>There was a shattering of glass, and an arrow appeared in Orrick’s throat.</p><p>You must have looked the zenith of pure horror, those paintings you’d seen on Chantry walls of citizens fleeing from the first darkspawn with their jaws flapping comically open. Orrick gurgled for one mortifying second before falling face forward onto the table.</p><p>Movement blurred your vision as everyone knocked over their chairs in an attempt to get down, the second and third windows bursting as more arrows whizzed through. Screams. Someone beside Orrick was just hit. There were so many arrows just now and you only barely flung yourself under the table, your heart pounding to cast a barrier. Stupid, damn stupid idiot, the barrier should have been first when you had stood there for a half second too long with your mouth hanging open.</p><p>Three figures flung themselves through the now glassless windows, empty of everything but barbed edges as their one of desecraters landed within feet of you, blade drawn. Your mind flashed to Thom who would not be here, half a day gone, who could not stop the sword for you this time, and you had a moment to raise your hand before the rogue struck at you. The barrier buckled under the force, and you screamed as a dagger tore into your face. It had been impeded by the barrier enough not to pierce your skull, but it didn’t stop until it hit bone, the right side of your mouth ripped upwards in two flaps.</p><p>The tumult outside had built from a murmur to a full roar, one you could barely register over the blooming pain as your assailant readied another attack, but suddenly the doors burst inward, armored legs streaming by from your view under the table as a fight became a slaughter. City guard were entangled with Orrick’s men and winning-</p><p>But that shock was the most you could pay to it. The assassin’s offhand blade had snapped forward to follow its sibling and you scrambled backward, desperate, hoping, praying to every God that you hadn’t kicked away your only hope in panic. But the Gods heard you. Your fingers curled around your bundle of sticks.</p><p>You brought your staff across his knee. You did not have the angle or any technique, but a stun was all you needed to draw your staff back and shoot a spear of ice through his chest. It pierced there, caught in his sternum, and there was a moment where his covered face might have registered shock before he fell over.</p><p>The gathering hall was now cacophony. You had no sight on the others, no idea who was fighting who—the mix of uniforms and what were probably Crows gave no clue to who was on your side and who was not, only scuffling feet and the clang of sword against shield. More arrows could rain through the window at any moment, but with no mark you could call down no Aegis. Right now, there was only one thing that could give you a moment of protection.</p><p>You rolled from under the table, putting it between you and the door as the barest form of obstacle. Then you drew your staff close, a circle scraped around your feet like a child drawing with a stick in dirt, and turned handfuls of fade into a wall of fire around your position.</p><p>It was not perfect. Too late you realized you had caught others in your sanctuary: Salm, still alive and bleeding heavily, fighting two assassins at once with her bare hands. As soon as your eyes fell on them, Salm grabbed one and flung him to the ground, the distinctive sound of shattering skull audible over the roar of the fire.</p><p>You clutched at your face with your hand, fresh blood bubbling through your fingers, and the several seconds your fire ring had bought you let you put the pieces together. This was the coup you always feared was coming, dreading in the back over your mind ever since Salm had been attacked. Orrick, bleeding out on the table…you could only come to one conclusion. You looked among the mêlée for Glinskaya, wondering if could meet her eyes before you would be forced to defend yourself again.</p><p>Instead, you were just in time to watch her get a sword run through her back, and fall to the floor.</p><p>And though you had watched a fellow Councilor murdered in front of you not a moment before, this was a new sheen of horror because the woman stood over Glinskaya was a city guard, blood fresh on her blade, face a mystery inside the slitted helmet. Every attacker in this room was a guard, butchering through the last of the Council’s protection.</p><p>In the time it took to take all this in, an assassin rammed her blade through Salm’s stomach. This only seemed to make the woman angrier. She grabbed the Crow by the back of her neck and jammed her face first into the roaring fire surrounding you, taking no care at the horrific screaming that split the air, nor the blade still protruding from her abdomen. When the assassin finally stopped twitching, Salm grabbed it by the pommel, and with one mighty heave tore it from her body and flung it away.</p><p>You were about to say something to her. Perhaps that she should have at least left it in there until you could get some healing on her, or maybe a ‘you really are a force of nature, aren’t you’, but all that was seared from your mind as white hot agony flared in every orifice. What had been done to your face was nothing compared to <em>this</em>. Reality was yanked away by force, the ground suddenly flat with your nose as a scream was torn from your mouth like a yanked tooth. With the pain, you hadn’t the slightest idea what had happened.</p><p>It took seconds of blinking at the ground for sanity to return to you. Every drop of mana had been drained from you in an instant—no, not drained. <em>Boiled</em>, like a pot left on the fire until it foamed over and extinguished all beneath it. You were laying on the floor, facing away from the door, so you heard rather than saw the slow methodical footsteps as they entered through the hall’s double doors.</p><p>A beleaguered, one-armed hobble pushed you off the ground, an attempt to get air into your certainly broken noise. The battle hadn’t been as one sided as you thought: the combatants had killed themselves to a man, only a few city guard now leaning against various walls as they tried not to bleed out. With the footfalls came an air of terror, chilling the room with tap of sabatons against stone, their path flanked on each side by corpses. They rounded the table, and stopped only when your ring of fire blocked their path.</p><p>“Mallorick?” Salm wheezed.</p><p>The guard captain looked around the room with disdain on her pitiless face. Her sword and shield were drawn, the former tilted just so slightly at the ground. Something Bull said to you a long time ago echoed in your head.</p><p>“Treason?” Salm coughed. “After four years, you <em>now</em> bring about treason? What are you <em>thinking</em> Mallorick?”</p><p>“I can answer that,” you said dully. It was so obvious now, that scent, the burning of fade always near her. What an idiot you’d been not to recognize to for the moment you’d met. It had taken being fried inside your own skin for you to make the association with those few times a smite had been preformed on you. “She’s a Templar.”</p><p>Salm blinked at her. Of course. To any non-mage a Templar was just a person, a member of the Chantry to be respected, a good mark when considering someone for the position of guard captain.</p><p>You gathered yourself to a standing position. “Who are you? Really?”</p><p>“<em>I</em> am who I’ve always been,” Mallorick spat. Even though her mangled face barely changed, her voice was fire under bone. “It is <em>you</em> who’ve infiltrated, a guise of some simple-minded Dalish. But a mage is never just anything, never just an elf, never just a outsider—you are <em>the</em> mage who brought the world to its end.”</p><p>You scoff. “Everyone knows who I am. I mad no attempts to hide.”</p><p>“And yet you fooled them, every one.”</p><p>The flames leapt between you and her, a feeble barricade but a barricade none the less. If only she had wasted her smite one brining down it instead of you, you could have cast another one. But she probably had known that. Bastard.</p><p>Mallorick lost interest in you, and hissed at the limping Salm. “And <em>you</em>. All of you! Allowing that Keeper to sit here among you, to poison your minds with subversions and blood magic. I withheld myself then for our friendship alone, but <em>this</em>,” she pointed her blade at your chest. It glittered in the firelight. “This <em>Inquisitor</em>, destroyed the Chantry, put a whore on the sunburst throne, murdered the feeble remains of the Order. And you raised it to Councilship.”</p><p>“Mallorick listen to yourself,” Salm pleaded. “You used to laugh at the knights who talked like that. Fanaticism is why you left.”</p><p>“That was before you turned from the Maker’s light,” Mallorick said, that even temper to her voice back, the outburst fading. Only tranquility remained as she gazed at her former friend. “Your perversion ends here. We’ll wipe this city clean, like we did after the Duke. And this time, we’ll do it right.”</p><p>“It’s no use Salm,” you said, finally feeling the barest reserve of mana pooling in the bottom of your stomach. You needed more time, to stall. “The lyrium’s gotten to her. I take it you were the theft of the College’s stores?” The last you addressed to Mallorick.</p><p>The guard sniffed. “Better in our hands than in the mages.”</p><p>Our. More former Templars she had recruited? The ranks of the guard growing fat with enemies to your people, for years before you’d even come here. “And the flood?”</p><p>Silence. You remembered the gashed pipes below the district. Below the <em>Tower</em>. An…accident of all things?</p><p>“All that, just to sate your addiction,” you said, putting more disdain than necessary; you needed to keep Mallorick’s attention so she didn’t go charging through the flames prematurely. From experience you knew it wouldn’t last much longer, a minute at most, and before that you needed to have a spell ready, any spell, just a few drops more magic. “Couldn’t bare to be apart for a few months-”</p><p>Salm fell to her knees.</p><p>You jumped in surprise, thoughts of distraction interrupted. You stepped closer, and saw what that blade through her abdomen had actually done to her, what you’d failed noticed while you’d been clutching your own face. The wound in her stomach was massive. Fatal. Blood radiated from the hole in her finery, soaking through each fiber, red and messy as the gore climbed out from her body. She had not cried out, and thus fooled you into thinking she would help you against Mallorick.</p><p>Salm fell onto her side, and you realized you had nothing. The guard captain looked on, disimpassioned. “So then. Only you left, demon.” She raised her sword. “For Wycome.”</p><p>The flames petered out, and she charged.</p><p>With not enough in you to cast a spell, there were preciously few things you could do. Pitifully, mournfully few things, but your only chances. It would have to be enough hold the shaking muscles in your arm still, focus your attention, even as death bore down on you in armor that shined.</p><p>As Mallorick ran, each step seeming so slow as the last of the embers parted around her, you reached behind you. Your fingers closed around a scrap of wood.</p><p>That scrap of wood was far to light for this. To do anything. What you asked of it was not possible when you had only ever thrown at stationary targets, when it would only activate when still a short distance from its mistress. But you had nothing else.</p><p>An empty sword hilt went sailing through the air. Nearly weightless. Only the faintest glimmer of yellow as it formed a dagger’s blade.</p><p>The hilt stabbed into Mallorick’s eye with a <em>thunk</em>.</p><p>The body kept going, but you scrambled out of the way as the Templar collapsed dead a few feet past. The metal shell landed on its side, and the half-second the blade had lasted petered out, and it was an empty sword hilt once again. It hit the ground with a small clatter.</p><p>Suddenly what was once a threat was now just a body. An empty, dead body to join the others in the room where only you still stood alive. The gore staining the flagstones made you want to vomit. So you did.</p><p>You were dizzy. You were about to die. To have every drop burned from you and then dig even <em>deeper</em> into mana you didn’t have for the spirit blade felt worse than any mana exhaustion you’d come close to in the past. You wanted to die right now, still couldn’t believe Mallorick wouldn’t get back up and cut you down.</p><p>Though it appeared some had decided to grant that which. There was the sound of a scuffle in the hall beyond the double doors.</p><p>Of course. How could you be so foolish to think that was the end of it? There was a whole city full guards waiting to kill you, and now you truly were out of options. Swords were scattered about but you knew you could find no strength to lift them as blood loss shook your muscles; instead, you clung to your staff, forcing yourself off it for support, and instead readying the battle stance you had practiced so many times. Groin, eyes, knees—that was your mantra. Groin, eyes, knees. You could not kill whoever came through that door, but Fen’harel take you, you would make them work for it.</p><p>You waited, baited breath as the fighting grew louder. The pain in your lungs and your head made standing seemed like such an intolerable thing that maybe it would be better when they ended it.</p><p>Two figures reached the tail end of their fight just as they walked into view, one gutting the other and using his boot to push his foe off his sword. The victor turned, helmetless, and eyes snapping wide when he saw you. “Miel!”</p><p>You collapsed to the ground and wept.</p><p>Thom ran forward, through the still leaking bodies, dropping his sword to gather you in his arms. You sobbed against his pauldron, relief welling out of you, to have someone else, someone <em>alive</em>. You fingers grasped pitifully in his tangle of hair.</p><p>“Thom, Thom, vhenan, where…how…” you hiccupped. You didn’t think you’d ever be able to stand again.</p><p>“I was halfway to Ansburg,” he said, void deep and guilty as he looked around at the massacre around you. “But I was thinking about Bisset, what I remembered about him. About how he’d once asked me to fill our a requisition for him. He couldn’t <em>read</em>, not at all, yet he’d sent me a letter. Something just wasn’t right.”</p><p>So he’d rode back. You’d meant to say so aloud but your voice could only be made to suffer, small pained noises as your shapeless mouth strained with the effort, and realized you would <em>not</em> die. Not here, not today. He ran his hand down your back, soothing motions like you were small again, like when mother was still alive.</p><p>Instead, you said, “it was Mallorick. She wanted you out of the way.” Another thing came to you. “For tomorrow. She was planning for tomorrow, but I called the Council early.”</p><p>Had that been the key? Had what was meant to be a total coup been disrupted enough to leave you as a survivor?</p><p>Or if things had gone as planned, would Thom be back in time to save the others? Maybe. You did not know. Maybe he would have died to, and Mallorick would have skewered you on her sword.</p><p>“We need to…inform their houses,” you said, because it was the only thing your brain could supply. “Let them know that the guard have turned.” That there were Templars in your own yard. That, at least, meant the College could be a safe haven, for as little love as they had in the city. “Let us…let us make sure.”</p><p>Thom looked like he wanted to protest. To instead hold you there and let you cry like you had the night you’d brought him home from that prison. Maybe you deserved rest, but the world would not give it. His face fell, and he nodded.</p><p>You went to Salm first. Her body was past, but her spirit still lingered. Strong magic could pull her from the brink, but you had only your feeble little regenerative spell. Spirit healing had never been your strong suit, you’d probably fall unconscious as soon as you cast it.</p><p>Still, you would try. You were about to conjure the spell, when Thom called out, “Miel! Cobbler’s still alive.”</p><p>He was. You went to where Thom had been inspecting the bodies and saw West had a dreadful head wound, broken and swollen like he’d been smashed against the table, bruise nearly the size of a ham and an ugly color. It hurt to see him, so lively, so himself, now in this near unrecognizable shape that these murderers hat put him in. His chest rose and fell with irregular beats.</p><p>You could save him. Right now, you could call that spell you’d meant for Salm, and you could have it so your friend made it out of this mess.</p><p>And leave it so the only survivors of an eradicated Council were two elves.</p><p>“Can you help him?” Thom asked, looking up at you, hope as his brows knitted together. Of course. West was his friend too.</p><p>You stood there. Too long as two lives were draining away quicker than you would be able to counter. Thom was looking, West was dying.</p><p>You shook your head. “It is a terrible wound, but he may survive it. Salm doesn’t have that ‘may’. I have to help her.”</p><p>“But…”</p><p>“Think of how it will look,” you said quickly, too quickly, as though getting out the words might make them hurt less. “Every person in this room is dead, Thom. When the guard says we murdered their captain and the Council in cold blood, who will the rest of the city believe? A pair of elves and their conspirator? Any love born to elvhenan in this city is long forgotten: people will see three murders and usurpers and there will be another purge.” You breathed, shaky. “But Salm, she heard Mallorick’s confession. They will trust her.” More than you, fallen hero that you were.</p><p>You knew what you were doing. To West. To everyone. You were going to let him die because he was just an elf, to disregard him just as everyone had done to your people for near a thousand years. And for a moment you wanted to give in to Thom’s wretched eyes, to heal an elf instead of a rich human woman, to do what you wanted for once in your life.</p><p>“Miel…” Thom said in warning. You wanted to. You wanted to.</p><p>But instead, you dropped your head. “I know.”</p><p>You stepped over to Salm, trying to keep the stagger out of your walk, and sat beside her head. Thom drew closer to pressed a hand on your shoulder as you arranged her head in your lap. Things would be alright. West would make it, Thom would get you to the College, things would be alright. You closed your eyes, pressed your hand against her temple, and healed.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. nespot isn’t a word, but nepotist is</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The quill made a soft scratching in the empty room, your only company the ever-flowing Minanter below you. The words stretched on an on; the more you wrote, the more you wanted to say. If it was not a convincing treatise, then that was the fault of the cramp in your hand and the hunch in your shoulder, not your dedication.</p><p>A knock rose over the flow of writing, but did not interrupt it. “Come in.”</p><p>Councilor Salm did not look upon your assemblages of shells and carved amulets as she had the first time she laid eyes on your office, nor pace along the looming elvhenan statues rescued from noble collections. She merely walked to your desk and stopped at its helm. “The Anouilhs are raising a fuss about the guard again.”</p><p>“Of course they are,” you said, waiting to finish your paragraph before looking up. “What is it this time?”</p><p>“They demand punishment for the retinue of guards who interrupted a <em>very</em> important dinner with the Comte de Tasse to,” Salm double checked a report hanging loosely at her side, “arrest their daughter.”</p><p>“Good,” you said. “Charlotte Anouilhs is a psychopath. She’s been murdering her footmen for years.” You steepled your fingers. “I suppose the guard has enough evidence now?”</p><p>Salm didn’t even check her report. “Mountains of it.”</p><p>“Hm. I suppose we do still have to deal with them though. Perhaps an egregious collusion fine could be…implied…if they don’t put this matter to rest?”</p><p>She frowned. “Why bring the hammer down so quickly? The Anouilhs are hardly our enemies.”</p><p>You raised a brow. “Tell me, when the family submitted this complaint, did they use certain…<em>descriptors</em> to accuse captain Fletcher?”</p><p>The expunging of the guard had been your first major decision as the new Council. It had been a near disaster—Salm had begged you to at least keep on a few veterans to train the new recruits, but you trusted none of them. It would have to be a clean start, with people you knew, and shockingly that ended up with quite a few fewer humans.</p><p>“…Aye.”</p><p>“There it is then,” you said sitting back in your chair. “They say what they mean with as few words.”</p><p>Salm grabbed a chair beside your desk and sat down hard, leaning toward you. “Think about this for a moment, Lavellan. The Anouilhs are publically neutral, do you really want to go chasing them into the arms of your enemies? You have so damn many already. There are still whispers about the death of the old Council.”</p><p>“Not as many as there would have been otherwise,” you replied stiffly, the strength of a well rehearsed truth on your lips. “They may believe it in the privacy of their own homes, but even saying it drunkenly to sailors in the back of a tavern makes you look ridiculous. My two strongest allies, killed? For what purpose? Anyone who repeats it sounds absurd.”</p><p>“They still say-”</p><p>“They would have said it no matter what.” Even you are surprised by the bite in your words. You reel it back. “I will always have enemies. I will not throw myself on the pyre for those who have already decided they hate me. Threaten the fine.”</p><p>That look crossed her face, the one where she realized she would not convince you. You’d been seeing it more and more these days.</p><p>Salm exited with a polite nod. It was an odd sort of thing to get used to, seeing this woman whose favor you’d been courting treat you with deference. Although you were equals—all equals on your beloved Council—it had come about that she came to you for advice more and more, and you were always happy to give it. It was not thanks for saving her life, you knew that much. No, despite all her bravado, Salm had not gained her position because she couldn’t tell which way the wind was blowing.</p><p>The bells chimed. You had a meeting to get to.</p><p>Unfortunately, you were delayed as a rickety human just about walked into you heading the other direction. “Inquisitor!” she beamed. “What are the odds! I was hoping to see you before we drew anchor.”</p><p>“Hawke,” you smiled pleasantly. “I take it negotiations went well?”</p><p>“Indeed they have! The Felicisima Armada is happy to provide protection for Wycome’s ships en route to Amaranthine.” She bowed a little flourish. “Though, it is ‘Commodore’ now, just so you know.”</p><p>“Commodore?” You raised an eyebrow. “And what did you do to earn that title, dare I ask?”</p><p>“It was bestowed upon me by the Admiral herself,” Hawke puffed up proudly.</p><p>“And how did <em>she</em> become the Admiral?” You couldn’t help the small smirk at the corner of your mouth, the one that always started popping up when you talked to Hawke.</p><p>“Why, she was elected by the Commodores, of course.”</p><p>“Ah, of course.”</p><p>Hawke tilted her head. “I love the scar by the way, very sexy.”</p><p>Right. The tear from the Crow’s blade had not healed properly, and you were left with a deep and ugly mark from the corner of your mouth to eye, the impression that you were constantly grinning an unwilling and permanent effect. With your rise in Wycome, there were those who had taken to calling you The Leering Hare; only behind closed doors, of course. There was no one to insult you to your face anymore.</p><p>“Well you know that’s always what I’m aiming for,” you said vaguely. You looked off down the hall. “If you’ll excuse me Commodore, I have someone who’s waiting to see me.”</p><p>“Before you go,” Hawke said casually. She leaned against a nearby pillar and titled her head. “The offer still stands.”</p><p>You massaged your temple. “That so.”</p><p>“Suuureee. My ship’s in harbor, you hop aboard, we meet up with Admiral and get reacquainted.” Hawke winked. It was a very overblown wink that made her head look like it was about to fall off.</p><p>“Hawke, I might remind you I’m a married woman.”</p><p>“So? Bring him along. You know I love a man with a beard.”</p><p>“I can’t say I knew that about you, no.” You raise you brows for emphasis. “<em>Good day</em> Champion.”</p><p>Hawke smirked, and evacuated her pillar with a backwards wave, sauntering all the while.</p><p>It was a good thing you had left early, otherwise you’d be running late. Trade had been the most important thing for Wycome since you’d resolved to defend the city. It placated the merchants, rejuvenated the workers, and generally was both a good end and a good means. If you had to justify anything—the rebuilding, the restructuring, the alliances—it could all be made in service to returning Wycome to prosperity.</p><p>Which was why this contract was so essential. That, and it was good to see old friends.</p><p>“Boss!” Bull greeted. He looked perfectly at home on the balcony off the grand feast hall, though he was adept at looking at home anywhere. Spy training and all.</p><p>“Bull,” you said warmly, and hugged him. “That was from me, but this is from Dorian.” You got on your tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.</p><p>“He actually tell you to do that, or was that your personal excuse to get a piece of this?” Bull grinned and indicated his handsome mug.</p><p>You chuckled. “Well, he actually says, ‘make sure that big lout hasn’t gotten himself killed yet’ but I did some translating.”</p><p>“Yeuhg,” the ever-present Krem grumbled. “Half a continent away and they still can’t get a room.”</p><p>It was nice to do this. To return to pleasant conversation with people you knew, to hug someone without worrying about a dagger in the back. You clapped your hands together. “I trust you’ve both reviewed the contract?”</p><p>“Looks solid,” Bull nodded. “Your coffers going to cover all of this?”</p><p>“If it’ll clear out the bandits from here to Kirkwall, it’ll be worth it,” you said. “And I know you guys. You’re worth every coin.”</p><p>“Never done a job this long before,” Krem admitted. “It’s a long stretch of road. We’ll probably out there for months.”</p><p>With a grin, a genuine one, not your skinmolded kind, you said, “with any luck, Viscount Tethras will decide he has some use for you. Who knows? He might even send you back here, just a double check.”</p><p>“The Chargers don’t need a <em>cleanup crew</em>,” Bull said. “If there’s anything you can count on Boss, count on that.”</p><p>Business slowly wrapped up, the final signatures added. The rest of the chargers had made themselves at home in the hall, putting off random dignitaries that had arrived for the day and trying to swindle the kitchen staff to serve beer before lunch. It was an odd little picture, not entirely familiar but not entirely not, and you almost regretted sending them away so soon. But the caravans needed to feel safe to travel if coin was to be flowing again, and you no longer had a legion of soldiers at your command. A well-respected mercenary band would have to do.</p><p>And just like that they were gone, your Fort once again filled with strangers.</p><p>There would be a meeting tomorrow. You could get some work there if you stopped by early, so you gathered your things and headed to the new Chambers of the Council.</p><p>It was smaller, dark, with no glass in the fine slits of windows and a chill in the winter. But the door could be barred and it didn’t make you feel like you constantly had to be checking your back whenever you sat down for a gathering, so you forced yourself to like it. Plus, it kept things short, since no one enjoyed being in the cell for long.</p><p>When you arrived, you saw that you were not the only one who had seen to get a head start on tomorrow’s agenda. “Hahren,” you greeted politely as you sat at the table.</p><p>The old woman looked up. Her eyes were small and grey, and her hands were knotted as she made long, painful marks on her parchment.</p><p>“Councilor,” she said with no warmth.</p><p>The silence hung dark between you as she waited, perhaps for you to get out your own writing instruments. But the apprehensions that had been squirming inside you were particularly unruly whenever you saw her, and somehow even worse now that you were alone with her for the first time since she took her chair. “I never got to say…I am sorry about West.”</p><p>She looked at you with those eyes, ones that were not friendly but not cold either. Only disdainful. Disappointed maybe. “Thank you for condolences. My nephew was good man.”</p><p>More silence stretched between you. You said, “he told me once that his great aunt used to be hahren.”</p><p>“She did.” Nothing more. No feeble connection to make, no shared past that could make a difference. The feeling, you knew, was not hers alone.</p><p>You had known it the day you had made that choice, what you were sacrificing and whose hopes you were breaking. Which allies you were trading in for another. Now the Council was yours, at least in the most meaningful sense: the old Councilor Glinskaya had returned to his post, and was as senile as when he had left it. He could be counted on to do nothing ever, which was actually a boon considering what humans got up to when they decided they had gumption. Orrick’s replacement had gone to election among the prominent merchant families, but you had learned your lesson. You left nothing up to chance. These many months later and your spy network was beginning to stretch its legs, whispering in the right ears, making sure that no one who thought you’d murdered their cousin wound up sitting next to you. Never again would you feel as helpless as you did that day.</p><p>Still, the Council was still far from perfect. You had debated packing it with another human who represented the working districts, and of course there were also the surrounding farmlands that were woefully underrepresented. Projects for a later dater, when you had built more of a coalition. The threat of Templars had been helpful in that: their reputation was far from what it used to be after the civil war, and a few well placed rumors about the death of the old Council made people forget that they’d ever been paragons of faith. These days it seemed people eyed strangers more for signs of Order loyalty than they did for apostasy.</p><p>It had been right, but the reminder never hurt so much as when you looked West’s aunt in the eyes. You pretended to gather your belongs which you’d never even put on the table. “I can see you’re busy. I’ll leave you to the Chambers.”</p><p>You made the long walk back to your room.</p><p>Thankfully, a letter had been delivered while you were out that put you right back in high spirits. You were rereading it with a grin on your face when Thom returned from the training yard.</p><p>“Look,” you said, waving the letter. “The Arlessa of Amaranthine wrote me back.” You cleared your throat and acquired a properly Orlesian affectation. “‘<em>I have inspected your trading ships and am surprised they did not fall to pieces a knot from shore. I cannot imagine how they survived with such hulls, they look at though you peeled the boards off a tavern floor, hammered them together, and called it a day. If you were any responsible Comtesse or Inquisitor or whatever they are calling you these days, you’d burn them out of shame. Your handwriting is atrocious.</em>’” You set down the letter. “I think I like this woman.”</p><p>“Hm,” Thom grunted as he went over to the wash bin.</p><p>“She’s agreed to lower taxes on ships from Wycome,” you continued. “I think this partnership is going to be very beneficial to us both.” When Thom said nothing, you got up from you desk. “Something wrong, my love?”</p><p>“I saw the Chargers were here,” he said as he wiped his face.</p><p>“Ah, yes. Didn’t I mention? I do hope you got a chance to catch up with them.”</p><p>He grunted. “We did.” But said no more.</p><p>You came closer, entwining your hands in his. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. You know that, right?”</p><p>“I’ve <em>been</em> telling you Miel, you just haven’t been listening.”</p><p>That caught you off guard. “Telling me what?”</p><p>“You need to <em>stop</em>,” he said, suddenly impassioned. “Whatever, this- this is that you’re becoming. You’re recreating your own miniature game across the sea, and brining everyone you’ve ever known in on it as well.”</p><p>“I needed <em>help</em>, Thom,” you said, slightly hurt. “I can’t rely on you for everything, I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m choosing our friends because those are the people you trust.”</p><p>“You’ve had two family heads assassinate,” he said darkly.</p><p>You looked away. “I did worse when I was Inquisitor.”</p><p>“That was when we were fighting for something!” He pulled his hands angrily away. “When we were killing an ancient bloody darkspawn, when nobody else was doing anything. Now…I don’t know what we’re doing now. These are the sorts of things that I was doing when I was a blighted social climber.”</p><p>“Is bettering the lives of the elves not a worthy enough goal for you?” you demanded, temper rising to match his.</p><p>“Is that what you’re doing?” He stalked to the window. “That why you’re trying to get the alienage demolished? West didn’t want that, he <em>told</em> you that without a community the elves would just slide further back. He knew it was a bad idea.”</p><p>You remembered him saying that once, what felt like a lifetime ago. At the time you’d shrugged it off, thinking that he only loved the walls because he’d been inside them his whole life. “It’s a step we have to take. There will be short term sacrifices-”</p><p>“And what about the prisons?” Thom said. “You promised there’d be reforms, not just to me. People were counting on these sorts of things.”</p><p>“This again.” You waved the argument away. “I told you, we need to consolidate our power first, get a unified Council and the funds-”</p><p>“Consolidate our power,” Thom scoffed. “You sound like Lady Nightingale.”</p><p>“And why not?” You threw back your shoulders. You were no match for Thom’s height but that didn’t stop you from storming over to him as the window bathed you in half-light. You met his eyes. “Leliana suffered three separate uprisings, she silenced anyone who wanted to halt progress, those same people who had be stepping and stepping and <em>stepping</em> for centuries. Why shouldn’t I be like her? Why shouldn’t I do what is necessary?”</p><p>When you met him, with all the fierceness in your gaze, you watched as his own drained out of him. He raised his hand, then stopped as though about to think better of it, but then went forward with the motion as he caressed your warped face. “I can’t make you. But I can ask you. Please stop doing this to yourself, my lady. I cannot bear to watch you fade, lose all of the caring I fell in love with. When the Inquisition fell you said you never wanted what happened to it to happen again.”</p><p>“It won’t,” you said with all of the conviction you could muster.</p><p>He said nothing for a moment. “Is that your final answer? That you won’t stop?”</p><p>There was a brief pause, the gap between knowing what you want to see and knowing it’s the wrong answer. “Yes.”</p><p>He drew back his hand. “‘You are who you choose to follow’. I told you the story about that, didn’t I?” He turned, and for the first time that day you saw that there was a bundle in the corner of the room. Packs of supplies. “I’ve heard how things are in Kirkwall. I think I can do some good there. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone or if I’ll be back but…I can’t be here Miel. I can’t watch you become this.”</p><p>His words sunk in too slowly. He’d talked about leaving before, had gone away for short amounts of time on sudden notice but…</p><p>He’d said if. If he’d be back, not when.</p><p>“Thom are you…” No, you wouldn’t even ask that. It was clear enough. Tears were welling in yours but you couldn’t find it in you to push them away.</p><p>He looked up. His own steel eyes were wet and clouded, pleading, begging you to say something. Wishing you would make him stay.</p><p>You couldn’t. If you did, it would be a lie.</p><p>“I’ll always love you,” he said, as he shouldered his pack. He waited, patiently to see if you would say something back. You didn’t.</p><p>Then he was gone, and you fell hard onto the bed. You sat there, bonelessly, staring at your hands, at the ring carved with hearthfire and blessings to Sylaise that you’d had made for your bonding. It had been difficult, to find a wandering clan who would be willing to make them for you, more difficult still to find a Chantry sister who would bless their exchange. You looked to your left and saw its twin sitting on the end table.</p><p>You picked it up. It was so beautiful, yet you had let it wilt. Through negligence? No, Thom had spoke nothing but truth. You had seen how this life had hurt him, but you thought yourselves strong enough to weather. Hadn’t even questioned that you might not.</p><p>Part of you wanted to run to him, to say that things would change, that you would abandon Wycome in the night. But that was not what you would do, and the rest of you knew it. But…but nor could you leave things like this. He could not be with you and you could not abandon your principals but you would do more than sit here crying and holding your wedding ring. You balled your hand into a fist.</p><p>You tore out of the shared chambers that had once belonged to Thom and you and careened down a flight of stairs, for the first time wishing that you were a competent enough healer to augment your natural speed. As it was, you were a woman possessed, and you charged down to the stables.</p><p>Thom’s courser was gone. It didn’t matter, you would find him. You hopped on your hart, no time for a saddle, and called “hiya!” as you pressed the heels of your boots in.</p><p>He was headed to Kirkwall. There was only one road that direction, and you prayed that he had spoken the truth, that he truly did not want to see you so badly that he would hide where he went. But you rode your horse hard, and finally saw him cresting an eastern ridge, his own mare at the steady plod that would last him the month’s journey.</p><p>“Thom!” you called, not caring if you looked desperate because you were. “Thom.”</p><p>He heard. A turn of that head, a face at a distance that still filled you with love, with longing. You rode hard until you beside him.</p><p>You stumbled, getting off your own horse to stand at his flank. “I cannot leave it like this,” you repeated your own vow. “I promise you that I will do better, that things will go right.”</p><p>He looked down glumly at you. “Do not say things you think I want to hear. I know where you commitment lays. I know I do not own enough of your heart to change it.”</p><p>A knot formed in your throat and you struggled, desperate for the words that you wanted to come. You looked down at the dirt road, wet with fall mud, worn with wheel grooves and oxen footprints. No lies just because he wanted to hear them. Instead, a compromise. Your head snapped up as you realized what you must do.</p><p>“A year,” you said. “Give me a year Thom.”</p><p>“And what will you do with this year?” he eyed. “I’m not exactly an expert at giving away whole pieces of time. That’s better left to a mage.”</p><p>“If you leave for one year, and come back to me, I promise things will be better.” He regarded you dubiously, but you rushed on. “If you cannot watch what I make, the things I will have to do, I understand. But if you return in one year I will show you it will all have been worth it. That I will not lose myself, that I will not become-” An image of an Empress, gasping on the floor, spun so in words and deeds and honors yet still dying as her cousin speeds away. You swallowed. “-any less than what I am. I will not lose myself. Allow me the chance to prove it.”</p><p>When he said nothing, you thought he might refuse you even that.</p><p>You grasped his hand, and pressed the ring into his palm. “Please Thom. It’s all I ask.”</p><p>He looked at you with those big storm-set eyes, and Gods above all, they softened. He reached for his glove, removing it, then slid the ring back onto his finger. “A year.”</p><p>“A year,” you repeated.</p><p>You did not hesitate to kiss him as he leaned down. You never thought something so wonderful could hurt so much, and you still never wanted it to end. Once, when you had first fallen for him, you thought it could never work when you were from such different worlds.</p><p>Oh how right, yet how wrong you had been.</p><p>He drew back, up into the saddle, his horse sidling away from you from such an offbalanced position. You wanted to say more, to make this moment last longer, but something in his eyes stopped you. You held each other’s gaze for as long as you both could, but eventually he was forced to turn forward. He snapped his reigns, and then was down over the other side of the crest. You watched him go, not so far from where you had first come to this place together, and let the sun set into your eyes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and that's that! happy thanksgiving all, if you liked the story, please consider commenting :)</p>
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